Vermicast
by Selector
Summary: Attempt number two at a place for my Worm stories and ideas. If one grows legs this time it will get moved.
1. Chapter 1

"Big whoop." _I have no idea where this is coming from_?

"Really? Sophia got in my space a little more and drew back a fist.

 _I rolled my eyes, what the fuck? Don't roll eyes! Oh fuck!_ Sophia punched. I ducked my head to the side stepped into her and pushed. She hit the railing, flailed and went over. Emma was looking at me wide eyed. Madison had taken off.

"This nigger cunt is a cape!" I stepped up and looked over the rail. James House had his leg drawn back to kick Sophia _. No body no! What the fuck! Oh goddamn it!_ I landed on James with both feet on his shoulders and spun, somehow snapping off a kick and hitting Sophia right in the jaw on the way down. Her head snapped sideways and she folded up. I spun to James "I can take care of my own shit skinhead. Fuck off." _No body no! What the fuck? Now I am going to die._ James was a pledge, recruit, pivot man in the circle jerk, whatever they called it, for a neo Nazi gang.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and I, or rather my body, grabbed it and got a submission hold. I spun and was looking into the face of one of the rent a cops. "Oh fuck! Sorry! Don't sneak up on people." I let go. Just my luck. It was the cute rent a cop too.

He looked at me "Principles office."

"No duh." _What the fuck body?_ "Sorry! I'll just go to the principal's office." _And so begins, and ends, the illustrious secondary education of Taylor Anne Hebert. Dad is going to have a fucking stroke._

A half hour later I was sitting in a hard fiberglass chair in the office when dad walked in. "Blackwell, you idiot. You were a retarded bitch when we were in school and you haven't gotten any smarter. Sucking school board presidents and professor's cocks hasn't helped you any. This fucking cunt Hess attacked my daughter and she is sitting in the office? What the fuck for?"

 _Uh yay? Go Dad? What the fuck?_

Principle Blackwell blinked and blushed. The discussion started there and turned fucking epic. Dad brought the Union Lawyers with him. Pardon my language but those fuckers are not nice people. Well connected, versed in the law, old, fat, but not nice at all.

Upshot of all this? I got a video on the PHO of me kicking a capes ass. Allegedly Shadow Stalker, a ward, and I'm expelled. Mom would be so proud. Upside, Dad seems to have shaken off the depression mom's death in a traffic accident left him in. Downside, he is uber dock worker. Or channeling one, or is a cape and his cape name is Stevedore or something. I think I need a snack, my blood sugar may be low. I looked around the office dad had dragged me to. Arcadia High school.

"So, as you can see Winslow is a problem and I would much rather Taylor attends here." Danny leaned back.

Mrs. Johnston, the vice principle, nodded "I believe we should speak some more but I think Taylor may be hungry? Why don't we take this discussion to the cafeteria?"

My head was swimming. Dad was suddenly channeling Max Anders and the country club crowd. I followed Dad and the vice principle and as they went to the teachers table I took a seat at the first table I came too. I didn't want to sit at the teachers table and get labeled a narc or something. A mousey haired girl with freckles sat down and then an Asian girl and her friend. The Asian girl elected herself spokesman "Lucy, Amanda, Amy. You must be in one of the other home rooms?"

I swallowed "Taylor, uh, no. I don't go here." I cringed "Hoping to transfer here."

Amanda looked up, pulled on Lucy's top and showed her her smart phone. Lucy's eyes got huge. "You're a cape?"

"No! Uh, not that I know of. Sophia was probably trying to maintain her cover. I tossed her off that landing by accident and her power did something. James House saw and he started yelling about her being a cape. Then I, uh kind of landed on him and shut him up then kicked Sophia in the head." I looked around and blushed furiously everyone was looking at me.

Amy looked at me closely "So Sophia Hess didn't attack you out of the blue?"

I snorted then covered my mouth. Amy grinned at me. I tossed her a glare "No she didn't. I had a friend. Emma Barnes. Somehow those two met, Emma and Sophia, and I got kicked to the curb. Then Hess, the bitch, wants to start harassing me."

Amanda shrugged "Tall, lean, pretty. Hess got jealous you would take her girlfriend."

My world stopped turning so fast I thought I would fly off. "No, what? Wait, I'm not gay? Not anything yet really. Pretty?"

Amy, Lucy, and Amanda looked at me for a minute and cracked up laughing. I pouted at them fiercely.

Amy shook her head "Model tall and great bone structure. My sister will have you walking the runway with her by this weekend. So brute then?"

I blinked "I am not a cape."

Amy looked at me "I am. Panacea. Shadow Stalker is dangerous. My sister dates a ward. Shadow Stalker was an independent, maybe a villain but was a vigilante. She is on probation and is a ward. The others don't like it but it's political. They don't like her much either. The wards go to Arcadia but somehow she wrangled Winslow."

"Why? That place is a shit hole. Bangers everywhere. All three, E88, ABB and Merchants." I was a bit confused as to why anyone who could go somewhere else didn't.

Lucy had been poking at her smart phone for a while "Track. Plus, probably special consideration due to the extra money she brings in."

I blinked "Extra money?"

Amanda nodded "Wards are a security risk. The PRT provides resources. Plus, capes have special needs sometimes. More money for that. Special schedules, so more money."

Amy shrugged "I don't think it's a gold mine but it's certainly worth a school's time to cooperate."

Taylor nodded "So is her track career boned?"

Amy shook her head "Maybe, probably not though. Vicky can't play basketball but that's because she can fly. Hmm most of the sports really. Shadow Stalker has a changer or breaker state, it isn't faster than a regular human. Probably can't do hurdles or high jump. The PRT will sort it out for her."

Lucy gasped "They are going to come after you for outing a cape!"

Taylor chuckled "Her handler already tried. I wasn't the one that outed her. Plus, well, my dad shredded them. He brought his lawyers and let them out to play while he verbally abused the Principle, who he apparently went to school with and hates. It was pretty ugly and looks to get even uglier in court. I got expelled. It made the lawyers day. Lawyers are scary."

Amy nodded "Carol, Vicky's mom, is one. My adoptive mom."

Lucy was tapping her chin "Maybe you have some kind of power nullifying power? That shove shouldn't have connected with Hess in her breaker state."

She and Amanda took off and I listened while eating. Amy grinned at me.

Trump

So, at three I was enrolled in Arcadia and had a schedule and locker. Dad was back at work and I was figuring out the bus schedule to get home. Amy jogged up and grabbed my hand. She grinned hugely and shuddered "Amy?"

"Mmmhmm?" Amy hummed at me. I rolled my eyes. Amy snapped out of it and grinned at me "Come on. Boardwalk. Vicky can give us a ride."

"What? How?" I resisted weakly.

Ten minutes later I was flying over Brockton Bay. Sitting on Glory Girls left arm with Amy sitting on her right. I wasn't real sure about this. Amy was rolling her eyes at me all the way to the boardwalk. We landed on a roof and Amy took my hand and drug me into the New Wave storefront on the boardwalk. I got handed a burner smart phone "Temporary, until you get your own." And a domino mask. Amy shrugged "You are a cape. I have no idea what your powers are but you have both structures in your brain and they are big and very active."

Vicky grinned "Yay!"

I sighed "I'm not a cape." Those words and "Nope." Or some form of it filled the afternoon and early evening. I called Dad and told him where I was and who I was with. He told me to have fun as I didn't have homework yet.

Trump

Emily Piggot, Director of the Brockton Bay PRT, sat with Armsmaster, Leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate. He was a parahuman, tinker, she was not. Together they were in charge of the PRT and Protectorate Brockton Bay ENE. It was one of the hottest Directorates in the United States and Brockton Bay had more capes per capita than any other city in America. Most of them villains, a few rogues, very few in the protectorate or wards. In short it was a powder keg, in a burning coal mine. "So, Shadow Stalker has been outed."

Armsmaster nodded "Through her own stupidity apparently. I have the other two girls under Master/Stranger protocols along with her."

Emily snorted and used her favorite line "Toddlers with machineguns. Meanwhile I have the agent who was her handler by her short hairs. It looks like she and Blackwell colluded to get the money from the bonus paid to the school for Shadow Stalker."

Armsmaster nodded "Master/Stranger protocols for her as well."

Emily nodded then shrugged "Sure. I think you will find she is just a greedy bitch though. Maybe she has money troubles. People are generally scum and will most often do the wrong thing with no outside agency prompting them. This House character though. E88 certainly. I think we will prosecute him."

Armsmaster nodded "His best chance at survival probably. Kaiser would turn him into an object lesson."

Emily nodded and sat forward digging through papers on her desk "That reminded me. Purity is pregnant. And WEDGDG says she has split from the Empire taking two or three capes with her or causing them to leave Kaiser. His normal political games stopped for a while and they looked for why. This is the best they can come up with."

Armsmaster nodded "Further complicating and destabilizing the situation here."

Emily nodded "Offering an opportunity to convert her though."

Armsmaster snorted "Another candidate for your program. Have fun with that. I already have something to kill her within my tools. I'll work on something to discipline her with."

Emily nodded. She and Armsmaster did not get along. He was smart enough to recognize the political situation and futility of opposing her though. Powers weren't the end all and be all. Well ninety percent of the time. S class threats were a different story but they were damn rare. Armsmaster was her own little A class attack dog.

Trump

Taylor looked at her Dad across the table. Danny laughed "What is it you kids say? Duh. I grew up here. Marquis wasn't just a name. All those powered idiots in the bad old days. You hit a breaker Taylor. Normally her reaction would be instinctive and would have done something to prevent it. Like it did with House. You are a Null. You nullify parahumans powers."

"The empire will try some bullshit. The DWU security will pick them up. Not like we don't have a ton of ex-military who have been fighting powered fucks all over the place for a whole career. There are ways to deal with powered people. How do you think we keep the fucking Merchants out of the yard and the E88 from taking us over? They know we know and we have shown them we are willing to use the methods the guys know of."

Now we got you. A Null. We will figure out your range and we can make some serious progress. Hey, Glory Girl goes to Arcadia. See if you can get her to come for an interview."

Taylor blinked "What?"

The discussion got pretty involved and Taylor lay in bed with her head swimming for an hour or so before she drifted off.

Trump

Tyrone watched the guy with the greasy hair get out of the car. He didn't say anything. He just stood on the porch with the club in his hands.

Bradley walked up the walkway "So he brought his dog."

Tyrone shrugged "Woof woof faggot. What did you expect retard. You fucking crackers just aren't smart."

Bradley smirked "But now we got a reason."

Tyrone shrugged "Bring that weak ass shit on cracker." He watched as Bradley charged and laughed as he hit him in the head as hard as he could swing.

Bradley, Hookwolf, the chief E88 enforcer flipped backwards into the yard.

The blond opened her mouth and caught a five round burst in the torso. Tyrone leaned on the club looking at the ones who had come with them "Get this shit and get out. Tell Max we will happily kill all of you fucks."

"Remember the deal. You leave us alone and we don't kill all of you and your families."

He watched as four of them came and got Bradley.

Victor, in his position five hundred yards away just lay there frozen. Mark, a Hispanic guy, snorted "You should come to work for us. You at least have a brain." He pulled the knife out of Victor's neck, he had ghosted up and slipped it about an inch into Victor just as Bradley got out of the car. His partner had disarmed Victor.

Victor stood up holding the field dressing against the wound. "Hebert. We should have known."

Mark shrugged "You should."

Victor nodded "So, did she trigger?"

Mark laughed "Who the fuck knows esse. She is still the boss's daughter triggered or not. Way we got it was your boy stepped in the middle of something. Or it fell on, or through, him. He is young. It was a mistake. She handled it. We are done with it. Now you found one of our houses. It just makes a convenient place for us to kill you fucks. You know the deal."

Victor frowned "And if your man killed Brad or Cricket?"

"You got off light esse. Medhall is still standing. And Max doesn't have a bullet in his brain."

Victor nodded and left.

Mark faded away into the shadows. His partner lifted off the rifle and slid back and then faded away as well. The other counter sniper teams went back to their hides.

Trump

Taylor looked at her dad at the breakfast table. Danny snorted "Nothing new Taylor. We stay in one piece out ganging the gangs. Tyrone said he didn't have a blade or hook though and Cricket was all the way in the road so you got at least that much range."

Taylor sighed "I, you know what, fine."

Danny grinned "That's the spirit. Now give me your notes so we can take Barnes apart. Can't let people like that have an inch. I thought better of Alan. I thought he would have taught Emma. I guess he forgot where he came from."

Taylor rolled her eyes. Without Mom to hold his leash dad had gone right to the way his dad had been. Mom had worried about this. It was in the journal she had left her. Taylor went and got her bag and the journal she had kept on Emma. She smiled as Dad hugged her and left for the bus stop. She rolled her eyes at Shirley.

Shirley laughed "Get your own battle buddy then. You know the drill, no one moves around alone. So a null for sure. Tyrone flipped that idiot like a pancake. Jimmy put a burst in that stupid ass Cricket and Mark took care of Victor. Not permanent, just a reminder."

Taylor sighed "So it will go back to normal now?"

Shirley shrugged "Probably. Just another gang in gangland." She grinned at Taylor. Taylor rolled her eyes again.

Trump

Max Andres, Kaiser, leader of the E88 nodded "Well, they didn't kill anyone."

Krieg snorted "Hebert. We really should have put it together. How many of the fucking frogs could there be around? Why the fuck was she going to Winslow of all places? Immaculata is ours so I get that."

Max sighed "Hebert living in his dream world where everything functions like it is supposed to. The Protectorate has the hoodrat. Herbert is Hebert and we really don't need that war. She is out of Winslow. We can let this die down."

Krieg nodded "I'll tell House. My sister will just have to get over it." James House was his nephew.

Trump

Shirley hugged Taylor and smiled "Have a good day sweetie. See you this afternoon." She turned and got in the car that pulled up. Taylor waved and turned around in time to get glomped by Amy.

"Ack!"

Vicky laughed "She has been like this. Amy has a girlfriend." She sing songed.

Taylor looked at Vicky who was floating about an inch off the ground. Then she looked at Amy "Your powers work around me."

The two girls froze and Amy let her go. Vicky frowned "Uh, yes?"

Taylor rolled her eyes "Dad thinks my power is what he calls a null. Some powered Nazi's came by early this morning. Our security guys handed them their asses. Without it escalating to world war three."

Amy nodded "Carol was freaking about you, she thought something would happen. So, your dad is Danny Hebert the gang leader."

Taylor laughed "He runs the Dock Workers Union. They aren't a gang."

Vicky snorted "One of the gangs in town. One of the more powerful. Right behind the PRT, Protectorate and BBPD. In membership if nothing else. The Parahuman gangs leave them alone. That right there tells you something."

Amy was tapping her chin "Trump. Sometimes they null powers."

Taylor pointedly looked at Vicky's feet. Amy huffed at her and towed her away.

Later after a series of text messages and messing around in the dock yard the girls were sitting on the little beach by the yard in the September sunshine. "So if Dad can get it arranged you have a job moving scrap."

Vicky nodded "And Amy has a clinic."

Amy snorted "If Carol doesn't fuck it up. Your Dad is right though. I am charging at least the Medicare rates from now on. The state and fed can pay if no one else."

Taylor nodded "Only makes sense. I am not power testing though."

Amy shrugged "Don't do it officially. At the PRT I mean. Lucy and Amanda are Cape geeks and geniuses. Let them come up with some test. You moved that scrap just like Vicky though. Well except you did it like Marvo the magnificent. Waving your hand."

Taylor blushed "Yeah that will have to stop. I felt like an idiot."

Vicky grinned "We can get you a robe. You can be Morgana. Myrddin will love you."

Taylor wrinkled her nose "I am not wearing a robe."

Amy grabbed her hand "No ill effects. Well now. That nosebleed was scary." Taylor had moved a fifteen-ton piece of scrap iron as big as a bus with telekinesis or something. It had given her a nosebleed. Amy had stopped it. "Maybe start smaller and train up. Not just go all in right away."

Taylor shrugged "Once I figured it out it wasn't hard. I could probably do a lot more."

Vicky laughed "If you had somewhere solid to stand." Taylor had ended up sunk to her knees in the sand.

Taylor shot her a glare "Not all of us can float and be anti-physics."

Trump

Kurt looked at Danny "The mill. OK I can find some of the guys who used to run it. We will have to get the power house working and the railyard cleaned up though. We will need coal for the power house."

Danny sighed "And a million hours of admin work to get it back running. Fucking EPA. I'm going to call L33t. He can figure some shit out for us."

Kurt frowned "And Uber can look it over. Remember what we figured out though. The bigger the ask the better L33t does."

Carl Craig shrugged "Get him to fix the refinery and find a source of crude for it. We can take the engines from the wrecks and recondition them to run generators. Now that we have lift."

Lacey Kurt's wife shrugged "Make it a system of systems and do the ask all at one time. Everything you would need to run a town. Food, fuel, power, materials, all of it. I got some contacts at the University, we can have them brainstorm it."

Danny snorted "Yeah. Uber will want millions of dollars."

Jim Grindle shrugged "Pay them a percent of the profit."

Danny nodded "Taylor can invest in this. Or I think she can. We will ask."

Trump

Sophia looked at Emma, they were sitting in the food court of the mall "Because I got outed. Now it's all fucked up. This is Hebert's fault."

Emma snorted "Taylor didn't phase through some fucking Nazi."

Sophia glared at her "I can't control it when it does that. It's some kind of self-preservation thing."

Emma shrugged and tossed her hair over her shoulder "So don't blame Taylor. You should have thought of that. You got overconfident and she got lucky."

Sophia growled "And I am the one in counseling every other day and having to do school over the computer and with a PRT supervisor. And I have to do whatever they say!"

Emma shrugged "Which could be a good thing. There are plenty of ways we can use this to your advantage."

"I'm a ward! They won't let me do anything!"

Emma rolled her eyes "Look, this won't last. We just have to deal with it until the heat is off then we can go back like it was."

Sophia groaned "This is going to take years."

Emma shrugged "It might. Once you are off probation though you can leave the wards." Sophia snarled twisting the tracking bracelet around her wrist.

Trump

Lucy looked at Amanda then at Taylor "Oh yes!"

Taylor winced. Lucy was much too excited. She sighed and texted Shirley to get her to bring a SUV to pick them up after school.

Later, on the beach, Taylor flopped back with Vicky and Amy "This was a mistake."

Vicky nodded "Who knew they were power tinkers."

Amy sat up "Let's go look at my clinic. Before they think of something else."

Lucy looked up "Oh, it will be tomorrow. We have the base data and can build from here. Taylor will need more testing but you and Vicky can start the exercise program to see if we can make them stronger. We need to find some more parahumans. Different abilities to test our theories."

At the clinic they ran into Danny. Taylor gave him a hug. He smiled "So what are you?"

Taylor sighed "Trump they say. Infinite, they are trying to work up slow because there is supposedly a cost. Like the nosebleed thing yesterday."

Danny nodded "Slow is good." He showed the girls around and got to talking about the plan. Lucy and Amanda took off with the idea.

Amy frowned "They must be thinkers."

Taylor shrugged "Or just you know, geniuses. Both of them have over a hundred and forty five IQ."

Vicky frowned "You are in all AP courses. You two aren't like that? Go feel them Amy."

"What? No. If they want to know I will. They are cape geeks. They would know if they triggered." Amy objected.

Vicky shrugged "I don't think it matters really. I still say they are power tinkers."

Amy scowled "There is no such thing."

Trump

Amy's clinic was finished and staffed in a week. To include security staff. It was really the DWU dispensary. The DWU had ambitions in the seventies, it had a huge residence hall, Labor hall and dispensary. It had looked like the dreams were going to come true in the eighties then, well first Scion, then parahumans, then the Endbringers. The world was still adjusting Danny said.

One thing the clinic did was give the Union a recruiting tool. Now with Taylor and Vicky doing heavy lifting they needed it.

Taylors mother had been killed by a drunk driver. Danny had gotten a lawyer. An Asian female Lawyer who was determined to prove herself. She had sued basically the world. Anne Hebert had been a tenured English professor at the University. Thy Bui, the lawyer, had won, a lot, then the insurers started settling rather than trying her.

Danny had put all the money in trust for Taylor and Thy managed, or hired trustees to manage it. They were trying to build a reputation too. There was a REIT, a mutual fund and a venture capital fund. Danny had pitched the boat graveyard and docks to the REIT early and they had liked it. Taylor was going to end up owning most of it as the REIT worked out the titles and bought it up for pennies on the dollar. They hired the union to salvage it and clear it. Really the only way to keep out squatters. All that was left were the industrial facilities and the shipwrecks left over from the general strikes and unrest in the nineties when shipping collapsed because of Leviathan.

There was enough cleared ground now it was starting to attract developers. The REIT intended, as their next step, to develop it on their own. Well the step after clearing the wrecks. With Taylor and Vicky recovering the wrecks, or helping, the Trust would save millions.

Amy, working in the clinic found parahumans. They were talked to about being parahumans, introduced to Lucy and Amanda and offered employment. They were also offered assistance. Rachel Lindt got medical treatment for herself, and her dogs. She got legal assistance from Thy and gave Thy her next set of targets. She also got a job, the union took over animal control for the city.

Brian Laborn got some treatment and a job. Lucy and Amanda were working with him on his powers.

Sarah Livsey got a job as well. With Lucy and Amanda.

Things started happening and people started paying attention. Roy Christner, the mayor of Brockton Bay walked around the clinic with Danny "So what are you getting out of this Danny?"

Danny smiled "Helping people."

Roy laughed "Yeah, OK. So your daughter's trust fund is buying up the whole town. Most people aren't smart enough to see it because it's not the area of town where the money is. She is putting industrial facilities back online. An astute move as shipping is a major cost so if it's made here she can outcompete nearly everyone on price."

"The union is hiring everyone who can stand up, hear thunder and see lightning so is becoming the power it used to be. But where are you going with this?"

Danny laughed "Everyone. We can find work for anyone really. The same place I have always been going Roy. Making Brockton Bay a decent place. My daughter lives here."

Roy nodded "And is heavily invested here. OK fine. Now what about these parahumans you have here."

Danny narrowed his eyes "Rachel lives at my house Roy. The girl's mother was an addict, she was abused by the system. She has some problems, so do we all. We are working on them."

Roy held his hands up palm out "And Taylor? People will come after them Danny."

Danny laughed "Kaiser been talking to you? The Union lived through Lustrum and Marquis, The Teeth, Blasto, the freaking Nine. We can deal with the Empire and the ABB. You don't have to be a parahuman to fight a parahuman. They know we know. When they forget we remind them."

"Oh that reminds me. Dogfighting. Tell Kaiser to shut it down or move it out. Those illegal cage matches are fine. As long as those people volunteer. The dogs got no choice. Rachel doesn't like it. We don't either."

Roy laughed "Like they listen to me. I'll pass it along."

Danny nodded and shook Roy's hand as he left. Sarah looked at him "That was unexpected."

Danny smiled "He has to have contact with them somehow. He is the Mayor."

Sarah nodded "Think they will stop?"

Danny shrugged "The dogfights, probably. That's despicable. The cage matches, no. That's part of their culture. A part that is out of control but Kaiser isn't Allfather. Yet. Thank God."

"The ABB?" Sarah asked.

Danny sighed "Someday Lung is going to try us. We will have to kill him."

Sarah blinked "How?"

Danny shrugged "One in the head, one in the heart. Catch him before he is ramped up. Or with a heavy enough weapon when he is ramped up. He knows we know. Killing him is easy. Catching him alive is hard. We aren't the Protectorate. For us it would be self-defense. The smart ones are easy. It's the new ones and the stupid ones that are hard."

"So, this new one, Coil?" Sarah asked.

Danny nodded "He will try us eventually. Mostly he uses mercenaries though. Unpowered. No one even knows if he is powered."

Sarah shrugged "He is. Thinker of some kind. Can't tell what kind."

Danny sighed "Hard. They always think they are smarter than everyone else." Sarah smirked and shrugged. Danny laughed. "Just remember, stubborn wins lots of times."

Trump

Things settled into a rhythm. Taylor's powers kept getting better. All the other Parahumans were found work that there powers could help with. School roared along and just as things were going good and the Holidays were fast approaching the Endbringer sirens went off. The girls looked at each other when they recognized from the pattern that it wasn't within a hundred miles of Brockton Bay. Then they looked at their phones, which like everyone else's were going off with either calls or alerts. Even the teachers.

Amy sighed "The Simurgh. Madison Wisconsin. Assembly at the PRT building for transport."

Taylor nodded and texted Danny. They had had this discussion and agreed on search and rescue. Taylor could by now lift buildings. She could also tear them in half, melt them to glass, and do several other things. Enough so Danny wasn't worried about her. The girls rose and the teacher nodded.

They walked out and got in the van the PRT sent for the wards. Taylor put on a domino mask complaining the whole time "This is stupid."

Amy rolled her eyes "Take it off then. Your dad already has to have security. Rachel is known. You don't even have a Cape name."

Taylor shrugged "Hera."

Vicky bounced in her seat "Oh good one! So Glory Girl and Hera to the rescue!"

Taylor snorted "For thirty minutes."

They were stopped at Immaculata and Vista was just getting in the van "Better than being a Simurgh minion."

Taylor looked at her "Vista! Hey. You going this time or hanging out at the PRT?"

Vista shrugged "I can do my thirty minutes. You do that location thing and provide muscle and I can get is in and out."

Vicky nodded "Even quicker than me flying. So I can guard and help rescue."

Amy added "I'll be at the field hospital."

Triumph nodded "That might actually work out Vista, We will see what the wards are doing."

Vista shrugged "You do whatever. I'm going with Taylor."

Triumph was at least smart enough not to have the fight in public. Vista wasn't enjoying the wards. The PRT wanted her for a propaganda piece but nowhere near any action. She had been hanging out at the docks every minute she wasn't needed for events or on the console or in their Protectorate indoctrination sessions as she called the training. As Endbringer event participation was voluntary he couldn't really enforce anything anyway.

Taylor looked around at the PRT building as they stepped up in the line at the folding table. She told the officer "Hera, search and rescue" when she was asked then joined New Wave and Vista. She watched as other parahumans showed up taking note of the ones she didn't know.

Moments later they were sent to a circle on the pavement and then a man appeared and they were in a different place. Taylor gasped and Amy led her off by the hand "Strider. It takes getting used to." They found their assigned areas and got an armband then went to work.

Taylor concentrated and told Vista "Three miles that way."

Vista looked and compressed space. They stepped through "Teleporters and fliers moving the casualties."

Taylor nodded and started destroying the rubble between herself and the pocket of people she felt. They were released moments later, then she let the building slump down. Vista was compressing space behind them toward the field hospital and herding people through the compressed space. Taylor had moved on to another pocket of trapped people and Vicky was doing surface rescues. They emptied five city blocks and retreated.

Amy had been checking and treating the injured as they came through and checked all three girls. She handed out gator aid "How is it?"

Taylor blinked "I didn't even see the Simurgh. Were we close?"

Vista laughed. Vicky shook her head "You threw a building at her. She backed up." Taylor blinked. Vicky nodded "She was on the other side of that building you turned inside out and blasted away. You balsted it right on her."

Taylor frowned "I didn't sense any life at all in that direction."

Vista shrugged "Stopped her singing too. Everyone is very impressed. OK let's go again. I still got eighteen minutes on my clock."

The other two girls looked at their armbands. Taylor asked "It only counts when she is singing?"

Miss Militia walked up "Hera, yes. When you blasted her she stopped. I'm supposed to coordinate with you as we want all the fliers out of your way when you do it again."

Taylor blinked "Uh, ok?"

Vista laughed "Come on Hera pick a place and let's go."

Taylor concentrated and pointed "Four and a half miles."

Miss Militia looked at a tablet while Vista compressed space. They stepped through and Taylor walked to a pile of rubble. Miss Militia marked their position and some other things then told her "Go ahead."

Taylor blasted the rubble away and looked into the face of the Simurgh. When it cleared. She eeped and threw a hand out and the Simurgh flew away tumbling. Taylor took a knee and put a hand to her face. Miss Militia tried to hustle her away as the blood seeped past her hand but Taylor waved her off and cleared a giant area of rubble. Vicky herded the exposed people to the compressed path and started flying those who could walk. Miss Militia lay Taylor down after handing her a field dressing and helped direct the fleeing crowd. Downtown Madison was evacuated. The Simurgh had lifted back to her orbital position.


	2. Chapter 2

Daughter of Dockworkers, Child of a Disciple of Lustrum

What did they think she would do?

Danny watched as Taylor went through the routine again. Then he shook himself and took the first position. A combination of the LINE system along with both older and more recent techniques, all aimed at killing or maiming, it was how the docks stayed clear of parahuman lead gangs. Well, all the dock workers knowing it and practicing it. Some more diligently than others to be sure but the occasional reminders of run in with Merchants kept people practicing enough to survive the Empire Eighty-Eight and Azian Bad Boyz.

Danny snorted. The ABB, an aberration. The conglomeration of all the East Asian gangs under one leader. One caused by the Archers Bridge Merchants on one side and the Empire Eighty-Eight, a neo Nazi gang on the other.

As he had grown up there were the five families of organized crime. His father and the dock workers of his youth had kept them out in the same way. Bare knuckle brawling and weapons that appeared, were used and disappeared again before the cops showed up. It was a system by now. One he had been hopeful was on the way out when he was a young and foolish man. One he had tried to make go away his whole life as first a new father and husband, then as a single parent after Annette, his wife, was killed.

He had always had a reputation. A furious temper. The years had mellowed it, no that wasn't right, they had channeled it to where it would do the most good. He had gotten a lawyer to take the cases against everyone he could imagine on a ten percent contingency and used some of the insurance settlement from Annette to pay Thy Bui, the lawyer, a retainer. She was the perfect instrument of his rage and he thought everything would be fine.

Then Taylor had come back from summer camp and Emma Barnes, her best friend, since first grade, had turned on her. Taylor had come home crying the day she got back. Danny had called Alan Barnes, who had thought was a friend, and the bastard had turned on him like his daughter did Taylor.

Alan had always been a bit of a superior prick but this was uncalled for. He couldn't get to why though. Mark Hausen, the security chief for the DWU dock yard and former Marine Gunnery Sergeant had commiserated and shrugged "People change." Danny snorted. Yes, they did Gunny.

Danny worked over the dummy with the sap. It was muscle memory for him so he could watch the workboats hauling lines to the next wreck. The cables would be run back to the winches and they would have another one pulled up tight to the docks where they could begin cutting it up soon.

The president of the union being in Florida and Taylor having money in her trust fund Danny had bought the salvage rights to all the wrecks. It was a balancing act keeping the money flowing but it was slowly but surely generating jobs and profits.

The more people they had the more territory they could take over including the industrial facilities in the boat graveyard.

Taylor would never be wealthy but she would be able to retire and leave something to her kids. That was how true riches worked, you built them slowly, a little at a time. That way it was real wealth not wealth on paper that the next turn of the markets could wipe out.

Meanwhile Brockton Bay would slowly be improved again. Slowly because you didn't splash out money even if you had it. If you did the tax assessor bit you in the ass. So, all these facilities would be made functional and people put back to work. Never making a big public splash like Medhall and its Biotech and medical research and development did downtown and to the west. Let Medhall and its brothers and sisters pay the lion's share of the tax.

Danny nodded and blinked as he was standing having slipped the sap back into the sleeve sewn into his right pocket for it. Taylor bounced up with her sap still in her hand. Danny frowned "There are some midgets in the supply room. How are you going to hide a nine-inch sap?"

Taylor rolled her eyes like only a teenage girl can. "Backpack, side pocket Dad. I've even practiced reaching back for it. Plus, on the bus or at the stop is the only place I think I will need it. Arcadia isn't Winslow."

Danny smiled. "Your mother would be very proud, and I am too. A scholarship. You knocked the top off the placement test."

Taylor smiled gently and blushed a little "OK, going to check the girls."

Danny snorted "Where are you planning on putting all that stuff? Spider silk and limpet plate armor. I can't believe you got it fifty caliber proof and lighter than issue equipment. Still you have what a billion spiders? We only have three hundred workers."

Taylor shrugged "A new one every day on average you said. The girls only make four or five suits a day and the limpets aren't any faster yet. We are still doing the selective breeding. As it is we barely have plate carriers for the Security folks. Everyone else will have the suits but no plates by the time school starts. Then there are the jackets, my clothes, your clothes, it's a lot for the girls to do."

Danny grunted "They have six hundred babies apiece every eight months Taylor. Well the spiders. The limpets lay eggs continuously." Danny looked at Taylor "I'm so sor-"

"Dad! We talked about this. It wasn't all your fault, it was some Emma's and some mine as well. I just didn't deal. Like father like daughter. We are over it now. Or getting over it."

Danny nodded and sighed "At least the master covers up the tinker."

Taylor snorted "And I have a giant parts bin to play in." She waved around at the bay and the dockyards. "Oh, that reminds me, I got a plan for a thing."

Danny laughed "Taylor we have five thousand plans for things. The guys in your shop are running three shifts turning out assemblies for you to do your thing to. Plus, Martha and the seamstresses are adding cutters and seamstresses."

Taylor grinned "I built a metal finding crab and did the super coons. So, I got some purely mechanical tinks. One of them for the refinery and one of them for a thing to find oil for it."

Danny blinked "Well that will be useful, as soon as we buy the refinery. That is still up in the air. They receivers who own it think we want it for the scrap. Same with the steel mill."

Taylor shrugged "Lets the money from the power house build up a little. Plus, I will have time to study that engine and generator some more. Then I think I can make it meet tier four emissions requirements and squeeze more megawatts out of it."

Danny blinked "Those don't come in for another five years, and then don't go final for two more after that."

Taylor shrugged "It's all about efficiency. Apparently, I pinged off Armsmaster and Squealer. I do the autonomous mobile devices but they are as efficient as they can be. In heat conservation too. It helps running it on the bleeding edge of its heat tolerance."

Danny nodded slowly "And Panacea, because biotinker. It helps because you are cogenerating. Trigeneration even. James told me about it. Most excited I have seen him in years. How you two are storing the heat and cold still amazes me."

Taylor nodded "Blasto maybe but he had left town. Had to be her I guess. I will find out at school if she is really a healer or is a true biotinker. And thanks, although heating salt and freezing water isn't really that complicated. I have to check the dirt daubers as well. They had some more insulating to do."

Danny snorted "With the silk those orb spiders make. I though Mud Daubers preyed on spiders."

Taylor shrugged "Roaches work. For both. I get through a lot of roaches."

"For which we are all grateful." Danny shuddered. "Did your killer hornets get here?"

Taylor shook her head "Tomorrow. I have their habitat ready though. Warehouse Three ninety three. The signs are up and everything."

"Like that will keep the merchants out. Remember the high security locks. That's why we put those expensive navy hasp on the doors. OK see you at five or so." Danny hugged Taylor and headed for the Union building.

HPC

Taylor moved through the warehouses she now owned. Giant, six story, masonry structures from another age, like the Roman conquest, the height of the empire. Groin vaults everywhere, few small windows on the lower floors, really for air circulation more than anything else. One for her spinners, the other five for something. They hadn't gotten there yet. The airy top floors could be studios or work spaces. In the past they had apparently been spaces for clerks. In the age before one computer replaced twenty of those clerks. Now with business software, even cheap kludgey business software whole legions of clerks had been replaced. And people worried about Skynet. Ha! That time had come and gone. Industrial robots and now tinker tech robots were the end of that chain not the beginning. Manufacturers working on driverless cars terrified people. Aircraft hurled themselves from carrier decks and landed themselves. Trains ran with the engineers monitoring the system and holding a switch closed. Passenger aircraft landed themselves in bad conditions. They weren't working on driverless cars, they were working to make them cheap enough for mass production. Once they did that, how long would it take before any non-skilled job was cheaper for a machine to do than it was to hire people for. Machines didn't complain, strike, whine about working conditions, none of that. Fast food places were trying to automate their production for gods sake.

Taylor sighed "Not everyone is going to make it to Utopia." As it turned out her father was right. They had had some long conversations after she modified Jenny the raccoon. Dad had a whole philosophy canned up and fully developed. It had been amazing. A bit brutal and dark but amazing. Taylor chuckled to herself "Of course we didn't think so did we Jenny?"

The raccoon stopped on a ledge ahead of her and looked at her with her head tilted. "No, we didn't. Still though we realized he was right. So, school, thinking our way out of it is really the only way. Dad is a big softy though. He is bringing everyone with him. That's why it's all trades and no fast food workers or laborers locals. And all the training all the time. Now if we could just get the capes to realize very few of their abilities are really useful." Jenny turned and scuttled on. "Or how to monetize them. Hey are you listening? No, you are hunting bugs. I need some friends I didn't make."

HPC

Danny was in his office advancing his plan. He just needed a few years of flying under the radar and it would be nearly unstoppable. Taylor being a biotinker made it possible really. This plan he found from this Accord guy had legs. Like most plans by parahumans though it lacked a certain understanding. "I can see why, they think they are the next step in evolution. It colors their view."

Mark Hauser flopped into the chair in front of his desk "It does. Red normally. Or a pink mist eventually, in all but a few cases. Ninety nine percent of them aren't bullet proof. Tinkers got to tink too, even the ones in prison. Federal prison. You can control their output by controlling what you give them to play with. Leavenworth has a whole wing of tinkers. When they aren't improving their own methods of imprisonment they are working on weapons to take out other parahumans. Guided by a whole wing of thinkers. Those psychological operations bastards came into their own finally. The Army and the Corp's."

Danny arched a brow "It's not your Corps anymore, got it. So, what is on your mind Gunny? I know you didn't wander up here from your fortress just to drop that gem on me."

Mark laughed "My gate house is not up to fortress of solitude standards. Heard about a cape. Did some snooping. She controls dogs."

Danny nodded "Yet, so you had your contacts in the Corp hunt up any information on Hellhound. The one with the murder charges."

Mark shrugged "Mother was a drug addict. Kid went in the system. One of her foster mothers triggered her. Paid the price. Collateral was the other foster kids. Bad scene. Your girlfriend should be able to sink her teeth in the Philly police and Child services, maybe the PRT. Meanwhile if what they say about her and dogs is real she is a millionaire waiting to happen and we can hire people to help her and run animal control."

Danny nodded "I'll call Thy and she will take a look at what you got. So, dogs. How many could people want?"

Mark smiled "Millions. Top flight dogs for the military and law enforcement and it's not like the owners can't be trained too. Hell, they pay for obedience school. It's mainly for training them. White people are crazy." Danny laughed. Mark was blond haired and blue eyed.

"Let me call Thy." Danny said.

HPC


	3. Chapter 3

A true Queen

Taylor looked at her chair, saw the glue, and the tacks and just, just, she had had enough. The door slammed shut, she turned and grabbed the first student, a black guy, and broke both his arms. She moved on to the Hispanic girl and broke her lower legs. Madison got broken thighs. Emma a crushed pelvis and her head shaved. Glady, the Teacher, 'Call me Mr. G' She set on fire. Over the course of the fifty-minute period she worked her way through the entire class. It was an experiment in peer pressure. At the end of the period she walked out and they were all like they were at the start but they remembered.

Taylor watched attentively as she walked to her next class and when Julia said something blood splashed down the inside of her thighs and she screamed like the damned. When the bell rang for the next period, no pun intended, it stopped. Julia collapsed remembering the spontaneous abortion of her first child and how crushed she and her husband were to learn she was sterile. The divorce that came soon after, her drinking and bringing men home from the bar. Finally, she remembered the one that beat her to death when she was thirty-two.

Math was next and Taylor smirked. Sophia crowded her on the way in the door and when Taylor stepped away Sophia waved a bloody stump that sprayed blood over the whole class. Mr Quilan would remember his infarction for the rest of his life. It fucking hurt, and he had ghost pains from it every sophomore math class. Taylor didn't even bother to lock the door. The screaming drew a crowd that received some kind of injury until the smart ones stayed back. The bell rang and everyone looked at each other.

Winslow became a mad house. Empire Eighty-Eight soldiers got the injuries they inflicted. AAB bangers got fucked like the girls their gang forced into prostitution. Merchants, well, they didn't notice. Once you are stoned there really isn't a more stoned is there? Every time the bell rang everyone was fine. But the Empire troops remembered the beatings. The ABB guys remember asses full of cock and spit roast DP's and the beautiful people remembered creative shit like Julia and Emma. Emma's hair was actually gone. Taylor had to give Sophia credit. She sent some boys after her. Taylor lit them on fire and skinned Sophia. They were like that until the next bell rang at seven forty in the morning. Then they were fine.

The next day got started and the punishments continued but now they lasted two periods. School was closed by noon. The PRT and Protectorate were baffled. So were the local police, state police and scientist.

Taylor was impressed how bullheaded the students of Winslow could be. Sophia continued until she spent a whole day as a screaming, bleeding torso. Then she just didn't show up anymore. Emma soldiered on bravely until Sophia left. Emma collapsed crying and had to be taken away. Madison and Julia suddenly stopped getting tortured. Slowly but surely the others did as well. Except for the ABB bangers getting ass raped every period until they quit school. Taylor gave them a going away present though and every time a trafficked girl in a ABB whore house got fucked so did the ABB. All of them. Including Lung. He burned down his casino and four brothels. The plan didn't work as well on the Empire. Taylor was impressed about how few racially motivated beatings and rapes there were. She thought she would have to study that later.

Her power didn't consider tough talk and ignorance worth punishing apparently.

Taylor and the two hundred and three other kids out of twenty-five hundred or three thousand, depending on who you talked to, who weren't part of any groups or gangs were, of course questioned and put under surveillance. To no purpose. Taylor laughed about it, a lot. The editorial pages waxed poetic about how unjust it was the athletes and popular students were being bullied.

Winslow went through four principles in three semesters. Forty eight percent of the teachers quit.

The school got the best standardized test results it had had in ten years.

Leviathan came to town. His jets attacked him. His tidal waves washed him out to sea. His water shadow crashed into him cutting the corner on every turn he made.

His storm tuned into a water spout on top of him, it rained so hard where he was it was like a hose was turned on. Just on him.

Some of the heroes swore he was crying when he left after half a day.

Jack Slash chopped himself to pieces on the outskirts of town. Shatter Bird shattered herself. Burnscar got a ball of water that traveled with her, Bonesaw couldn't turn off the pain on any of the Nine anymore. Any operation she did healed whoever she did it too of everything and she couldn't stop herself. Mannequins external connections and affecters stopped working leaving him an odd object de art. Hatchet face chopped himself in the face every time he touched something sharp and Crawler ate himself or tore himself to pieces. Cherish couldn't affect other's emotions and couldn't stop feeling them. The Siberian attacked Manton every time she was manifested while screaming about being naked.

Danny looked at Taylor who was sleeping a lot and eating like a horse. She was a teenager and teens ate a lot, and were a bit lazy right? "Weird summer huh Kiddo?" They were watching the local news.

Taylor nodded "Well it is Brockton Bay."

Echidna escaped and made thousands of clones of hero's who were super goodie two shoes good. So were the clones of the villains who she grabbed. She spat the originals out after a thousand clones. They moved her to the dump and she ate that but still lost weight and mass until she was mostly normal. The PRT built a dome over her and made her an Endbringer asset.

If an Endbringer attacked they sent in the capes who the thinkers thought would be effective and she made a thousand copies. Bonesaw armored and improved them. They of course immediately attacked the Endbringers until none were left even if the Endbringer tried to flee.

Coil was a jabbering wreck. All of his timelines were failures all the time.

Over the summer the school grew HD cameras with microphones in armored housings and a new principle was hired in out of retirement. Jim 'Batman' Jones. The teachers were put through a boot camp and a security staff that looked like they belonged in a prison was brought in.

The city and State police were studying why muggers and attempted rapist were being found with severe beatings or gunshot wounds or with their cocks cut off and screaming about being fucked in the ass constantly.

Hookwolf was one big dog bite. Cricket thought she had scars before. Storm Tiger was chopped to pieces. It went on and on.

Everyone knew it was a cape of course but no cape claimed credit nor were any around when the incidents happened and the effect was spreading.

One odd part of it, all the drug addicts weren't, and drugs made them violently ill unless there was a prescription written for them by a reputable doctor, not some pill merchant with a medical degree from some Caribbean island.

Amy Dallon, now a happy well-adjusted girl who healed everything with no restriction, found everyone in Brockton bay had a Corona Pollentia, and now had an active Gemma, at least all the ones she found in her rounds. Even tourist. If they crossed into the area of effect they got powers. Brockton Bay became a tourist Mecca.

All those new capes went hero rather than villain as well. Or, well, things happened to them until they turned at least helpful rogue.

The laws restricting capes were repealed by Senators and Congressmen who suddenly had capes in the family. Gold dropped to its industrial value. The US wasn't on the gold standard so they didn't care anyway.

For a few months, there were Rappers driving gold Escalades, the body panels actually stamped out of gold. Then that wasn't a thing anymore. GM's share price hit two dollars and fifty cents before it started recovering. The diamond in gold setting Escalades gave them a bump for a week.

Middle eastern countries, a lot of resource sales dependent countries' economies, collapsed. No one cared. Well other than the CUI. The United States had farmers who literally had green thumbs as did Canada. They literally fed the world now. Except for the CUI. Who when they tried military action ran into Scion. The Endbringers could only attack there or Russia as well. Russia caved early. The CUI played the long game. A billion Chinese fled the country. The CUI folded eventually.

A tinker made the Sahara bloom. The Chinese happily moved into it and began farming.

Taylor was a senior when Scion came to Brockton Bay. His golden light repaired, healed or improved everything it touched. He applied more effort, more of earth Bet was improved. People did complain about it being hard to sleep with the damn gold light all the time.

Scion was last seen floating along beside a former addict. He kept healing him every time the drugs made him ill.

Cauldron worked with the PRT and Protectorate to move their operations to other earths, capes were immigrating to.

Taylor Hebert married Amy Dallon in a quiet ceremony and they alternated having children for four hundred years. Amy kept healing Bonesaw and she could heal anything, even old age in Amy. Bonesaw moved in with them and they had a clinic for terminal or impaired ability people, amputations, blindness, deafness, diseases that made people sterile, mental impairments, that sort of thing. Oh, and old age. With the amount of healer capes in the worlds they did a brisk but not overwhelming business.

Everywhere a Brockton Bay cape moved the effect spread. At about a foot a year from the borders of their property.

Taylor never did stop eating like a teenage nose tackle. Her kids were constantly embarrassed. Nathans quit having their hotdog eating contest after Taylor was a contestant several times. It's true, once something is on the internet its forever and Taylor eating a semi truck load of hotdogs went viral in a big way. You just couldn't unsee that.


	4. Chapter 4

Yeah Weapons are the Problem

"There bitch. Now you won't pull that shit on me you did on Taylor." Sophia Hess lay in a spreading pool of blood in the hallway. "Now which one of these other cunts can I get rid of before these fucks get their shit together."

As it turned out it was quite a few. Twelve sophomores, athletes, popular kids, a couple stoners, some gang leaders of both sexes then he moved on to the juniors. He took down fourteen of them based on their reputations.

Mr. Gladly caught two in the head and then the senior class lost nine members. Several more staff got taken out as well. After that Greg Veder sat down on the steps and waited. He was out of ammunition anyway. He sighed, he had lost tactical surprise when the first round had gone off. He should have stuck with the knife for a while longer.

PRT Headquarters

Emily Piggot, Director, PRT ENE, Brockton Bay looked around the conference room "A ward killed in a school shooting."

Armsmaster leader of the Protectorate ENE, Brockton Bay replied "Shadow Stalker was stabbed. As were several others. Apparently, there were several bullies in the school. Mr. Veder took preemptive action, after a Taylor Hebert was locked in her locker, which was filled with used feminine hygiene products, and not found until after school hours by a janitor. That was a week ago. She is still in the hospital. Sophia Hess and two unpowered minions perpetrated this. They then stepped up their campaign on Mr Veder. He took steps."

"Thirty-five students and seven staff. Well, you can't say the little bastard was ineffective. Let's get Panacea to treat Miss Hebert. Other than that, this seems to be a matter for the police. Next item-"

Brockton Bay General Hospital.

Taylor Hebert sat in her hospital bed watching the television, amazed. Greg Veder. She never would have believed he had it in him. Her father Danny Hebert looked at her "Sorry Taylor. Did you know any of them besides Emma?"

Taylor snorted "Knew them, or of them. Bullies, gang leaders, shot callers for the different grades. Teachers that didn't care and let it happen. Greg made a pretty clean sweep. The gangs will be rebuilding, as will the popular girls, and the athlete clique. Those teachers were the worst of the scum that allegedly teach there."

Panacea walked in the room "Taylor Hebert? Do I have permission to heal you?"

Taylor blinked and nodded. Panacea took her hand. Taylors sat through the healing. She was a bit amazed really. Then her eyes narrowed "The PRT send you? They did didn't they. Fucking Hess was Shadow Stalker."

Amy Dallon blinked and backed away. Taylor smiled "Thanks! OK Dad, lets get out of here and find a lawyer."

Amy blurted "My mother is a lawyer."

Law offices Dallon, Peebles and Chow

Carol Dallon looked at the documents before her and sighed "I can't really represent you. I know someone that can though."

Danny nodded "Alan Barnes works here."

Carol nodded "Yes. I'll call Thy Bui for you. She worked here until recently. She is a great lawyer and was a fantastic associate but went into private practice."

Danny nodded "And if Alan used your firms name in any dealings with the school this is going to come back on you."

Carol shrugged "Its why we pay insurance companies, and it will mainly come back on him. We might need a new insurer though. Thy is very good and a night school grad could slaughter the PRT, School, Barnes, and all these other parents easily."

PRT ENE

Emily Piggot looked at the email. The legal department was going to settle. Well that was out of her hands and really there was nothing she could do about it. Hebert, the daughter, had figured out who Sophia Hess was. She winced at the actual number. Every dollar of that was a dollar they couldn't spend on equipment for troopers. It was enough to make you wonder if keeping parahumans associated with the department was worth it. Sure they were 'Protectorate' and the money would come from there but in the end it was all the same pot of money they had to fight against the Defense Department and Homeland Security for every year.

The Docks

Taylor sat in her living room chewing on her thumb a bit. A nervous habit. Thy Bui had gotten their life story from them and was suing the world, maybe the universe. Something about her not being eighteen so every bad thing that had happened since she was born was fair game. Her mother had kept a diary, a detailed diary. A habit she had passed on to Taylor. Thy had danced like a little girl who had to pee on being given them.

Her father walked in from the kitchen. "Dinner in twenty minutes."

Taylor nodded and kept thinking. Danny watched and smiled, a bit sadly. "So bug control?"

Taylor shrugged "At least bugs."

Danny nodded and watched the various acts Taylor had going on the coffee table, a sort of three ring circus of bugs. "So Veder miss any? I kicked a grand into his defense fund by the way. Thy thinks he could get away with probation on a diminished capacity defense. She says he will have to wear a tracker and will be in counseling until he is an old man though."

Taylor blinked "Might actually help Greg. He is a little antisocial."

Danny snorted "He is the definition of antisocial Taylor. A sociopath."

Taylor shook her head "He regrets it. Says he didn't see any other way out. He says if they did that to a girl, they were sure to do worse to him. He might be right."

Danny nodded "Lacey was a Lustrum enforcer and a MMA fighter."

Taylor winced "Is this to keep me from wanting to be a hero?"

Danny laughed "Only you can do that. Off the top of my head I can think of billions of dollars of application for your powers in this country. Some of the governments where they have malaria would snatch you up and turn you into a bug light. All of that would be heroic, like Pasteur or Salk. At some point you are going to have to fight apparently. If nothing else, to keep from being kidnapped. I would prefer this associated tinker thing the Protectorate does." Taylor opened her mouth and Danny looked at the clear plastic box with the black widow in it. "I can google too Taylor."


	5. Chapter 5

Shatterbird screamed again and the bullet took her right between the eyes. She fell with the crash and then tinkle of broken glass.

Bonesaw ran to her and knew it was hopeless. Her brain was jello and with it her abilities. She darted away though she knew there would not be another shot today. It had been seven days. She and Mr jack were the last.

Crawler had been the first. Unable to tank a APFSDSDU. It had turned him into a bag of jello. She had reanimated it but without the correct structures in the brain the power had left and rebuilding them didn't bring the power back. Jack had tried to trigger crawler until she was exhausted from bringing him back and keeping him alive.

While they did that Cherie had had her brain turned to jello.

Mannequin took another APFSDSDU while she kept Cherie alive for Jack.

Siberian didn't show up that night.

Hatchet Face was next, they quit trying to keep them alive and trigger them then and ran.

Burnscar was shot while they were driving.

They stopped and Shatterbird rose to scout and screamed until there were no reflections anymore because Mr. Jack said whoever this was had to be using a telescopic sight. Which meant glass.

Mr Jack came around the corner of the boulder and leaned down looking under it. Then he knelt and slid in beside her "You rest Poppet. Tonight old Mr. Jack will find this Tinker." Bonesaw didn't say a word. She was mentally and physically exhausted.

Jack came back in the morning and leaned down then took a knee. He reached in and woke Bonesaw "Morning Poppet."

"Did you find him Mr Jack?"

"No Poppet but we are clear then."

Bonesaw saw the muzzle flash then the burring powder hit her eyes. "Don't count on it." There was a pop. Bonesaw had already released her countermeasures.

The twelve-year-old sat crying in the dirt, blind, alone, and in the desert.

The cycle of light and heat then cold darkness passed three times before she managed to fix her eyes. She moved out at night as it was too hot to walk during the day. "Far enough." Bonesaw froze. "Yall were a bit of a challenge. Not to mention your allies."

Bonesaw looked at the gnarled man in front of her with the rifle and a pistol in the shoulder holster. He was wearing a set of green cargo pants and a green shirt with pockets and what had probably once been black combat boots "Allies?"

"Shot Jack, was lining up on you, some woman opened a portal and tried to kill me. Shot her, then went through the portal and cleaned out a base full of friends of hers. That took a couple days. Then read through all their computer files. People really should use something besides Office. That's just lazy.

"So, you, then I get to figure out how to kill a multidimensional being."

"You aren't going to arrest me?" Bonesaw asked hopelessly.

"Nah. These powers yall get make you crazy." The man pulled the pistol and put one shot in the blond twelve-year old's fatal T from three feet away. He turned and disappeared.

"Caligae. It's very distinctive."

Alexandria looked at the dragon drone "Or some other type of hobnailed boot or shoe. Not necessarily the sandals of a roman legionnaire." Dragon nodded the massive head of the drone slightly. "I would have thought you would be the last person to endorse this Casca theory."

Dragon shrugged "Other than you. I am."


	6. Chapter 6

Regular Girl, Tone deaf Taylor

So how do capes make money? Mundane shit, hehehe like taking a shit, or leaving one rather. People forget though. I didn't. So I found myself in the library at the conclusion of a month's work. Well, rest from the real work of getting a costume together, and figuring out what was what in this town. PHO stopped being online entertainment when I figured out I was a cape. First I had gotten a lawyer after reading an article in a medical magazine in the hospital about children having the right to sue until they were eighteen.

That had turned into money making method number one, unfortunately it looked like that would take a while to pay off. The lawyer I had gotten, one just starting a practice, was suing everybody, and I mean everybody. First for my moms death and depriving me of my mother. Then for the bullshit I had to put up with at school from the three bitches and their posse and now the Protectorate and PRT for Sophia Hess who not much investigation had turned up as Shadow Stalker. A ward.

Money making method number two was still to be found. There were laws, NEPEA 5, to keep capes from competing unfairly. So far it looked like I was the only possible source of a few products though so that was no longer competing unfairly. Hehehe. Next there were laws about what capes, heroic ones, could take from the criminals they 'encountered'. Bit of a euphemism there. Those encounters appeared to be fights. Figures. So a costume, then some training, then a few epi auto injectors. Thy, my lawyer had a procedure worked out and training for me in fighting, first aid, and documenting what I did. Waterproof pencil cameras with Bluetooth and a smart phone with a giant sim card helped greatly in the recording what I did job, and were worked into my costume.

Dad was a bit of an obstacle but not as much of one as I had feared. Thy had told me flat out I would have to talk to him and had mediated? Facilitated? Anyway she handled the conversations. Dad hired her on contingency as well and sued everyone too.

Thy got a parts list for a Mercury Sable and sued Ford, all the parts suppliers and the dealer that sold the car. The tire manufacturers and the city. The guy that hit mom, the company that made his car, all the parts suppliers for that car, the school and all the girls parents, all the teachers, about a hundred lawsuits. Everybody, like I said. If nothing else we would get twenty five grand in shut up money from each of their insurance companies. Legitimately worst case was two point five million. Since mine and Dads suits were separate it would be two point five million apiece. Thy would get at least two hundred and fifty thousand from each of us. All of that was worst case. Best case, and what Thy was confident of, was somewhere around ten million apiece. Mine was a good case over mom, and the school one made her eyes light up.

So, I didn't need to do anything, just survive until the money rolled in. Thy talked to a law firm that specialized in capes though and found out I would be forced to use my powers, apparently by my powers, and if I didn't keep using them on a bigger and bigger or riskier and riskier scale they might drive me crazy. Wonderful. Fucking powers. With great power comes a career or a trip to the crazy house apparently.

Thy already had a therapist who specialized in capes lined up. Good thing as there was apparently a waiting list for the good ones.

Thy also found out capes were great sources of income properly managed, after all they had all triggered and usually that meant trauma which meant someone could be sued, so was taking her practice that way. Apparently her contact in the cape law firm was a booty call of hers from law school or something. So, she had a whole canned up plan on managing a capes career. One of those if/then charts, a flow chart I guess.

So I had a martial arts instructor, not a dojo type, a marine woman who taught the LINE system and shooting. I had a Navy corpsman, also a woman, who taught first aid. A retired engineer from Natick labs, the Army lab that was responsible for everything a soldier wore, ate or parachuted into combat with working on equipment with me, and a woman from Thy's office who kept track of everything, a handler Dad called her. I had been in training for a month and was scheduled for two more months before they thought I would be 'up to speed'.

Oh and I had had twice weekly consultations from Amy Dallon, Panacea, Thy was courting her to get her onboard with her fledgling cape management firm. Rachel Lindt, or Hellhound as well. Rachel was apparently going to be a billionaire the way she made Thy cackle. You want to see an insanely happy Asian A type personality? Give her a slam dunk path to millions of dollars.

There were some others too. Capes I mean. Grue, Regent or Hijack, and a thinker called Tattletale Thy had grabbed them and hidden them away while she worked on their cases and went after their erstwhile boss, a villain called Coil in the courts. Well, with the help of the PRT, Protectorate, and a bunch of private investigators and bounty hunters.

So here I was, on the glide slope to being a moderately wealthy heroic rogue cape, in a town that was becoming a bounty hunting mecca. It was a bit much really.

Back to the original question though, that's how a cape makes money apparently, at least legally. I didn't even want to know about illegally. Legally was complicated enough thank you very much.

On the upside, I was transferred to Arcadia and Sophia Hess as in deep shit. Hehehe. Emma and her cronies too. A few more months and I might even have a friend or two. Arcadia was pretty nice and the students a better class of people than those in Winslow, my old school. Now if I could just stop eating. My whole pack was full of these ration bar things the Engineer from Natick had his friends cook up based on the results of Amy's every other day exams. They tasted like shit, but hey, I got boobs and hips. A flat belly, the start of a six pack and those lines pointing at my cooch too! I was going to slaughter the guys on the beach this summer.

Yeah, yeah roll your eyes. Well you guys. You all are apparently incapable of understanding as a species. Women want boobs and hips, a womanly figure. Deal. You like it anyway. So money, nice b cups, a nice set of hips and an athletic figure, beautiful hair, and a face I was maturing into. Legs for days, shapely legs. A good school and a crazy helicopter lawyer kinda mom analogue. Things were looking up.

"Taylor! Breakfast!"

Oh, and a happier dad. Another way to make an Asian A type happy. Have her meet a tall guy. I had to sleep with ear plugs. Didn't help much. Thy was as bossy in bed as everywhere else. Dad looked a little shell shocked. "Coming Dad!" Thy must be out looking for someone else to sue or sue for. Pretty sure she had been here last night. At least I hoped that was where the guttural Chinese shouting in a ragged contralto had come from.

Regular Girl

Taylor got off the last bus of the crazy route her trainers and handler had designed for today. The routes were half riding and half running. Taylor thought she could get to school faster just running. She made it to the gym and into the shower and got tackled while she was rinsing out her hair. She looked down into Amy Dallons face when she had the arm bar and snorted "Crazy witch. What the hell?"

Amy grinned "Checking your reflexes. She grabbed a boob.

Taylor squawked "You know you could grab a hand or something!"

"Not nearly as funny. Besides, boobs."

"You are gay, not a guy Amy."

"Meh, there. As much as I can do today. Eat more. Come on lets go, you can set another weight lifting record before home room."

Taylor growled as Amy let go, slowly "I am so going to find a healer and pay them to turn you all the way up as soon as I get my money."

Amy grinned "You still can't take me."

"Because you are a cheating cheater who cheats and puts me to sleep."

"Blah, blah, blah, come on the jocks are waiting."

"Don't you think this is going to give away that I am a cape Amy?"

"Nah, everyone thinks I am experimenting on you. With your permission. And someone is paying for it all."

Taylor blinked "What? Who the fuck started that rumor?"

Amy shrugged "Dennis maybe? One of those anyway. Chris is still busy lusting after you and being tongue tied. You should cultivate him a little. He would be fine to take out your boy urges on."

"I don't have any urges." Taylor rolled her eyes and dodged the reaching hand "And there is nothing wrong with me. I am a bit busy. So are you. When do you find time to think up all this crap?"

Amy shrugged "At the hospital. Healing is boring. I can do it on auto pilot mostly. My therapist says giving my imagination free rein is good."

"Your therapist doesn't have you assaulting them every day."

Amy laughed "You talk but you don't dodge or anything. I know your minions tell you when I am coming."

Taylor sighed "Speaking of therapist?"

Amy nodded "All of New Wave, and it was Vicky's aura attracting me to her but not making me gay. I was born this way."

"OK little monster. Weight room."


	7. Chapter 7

Fuck That

Alan Barnes looked at the dumpsters blocking the road. He looked up into his rear view mirror and sighed as the crowd closed off the road behind him.

The calculus of risk flashed through his mind. Middle aged, white, lawyer, versus up to twenty young Asian gangbangers. That was a loss. Twenty Asian bangers versus a three thousand pound smart weapon. That was a win. Plus he was an officer of the court in good standing and they were criminals. He might not even get arrested. Self-defense and defense of others. The police weren't going to be very sympathetic to bangers.

He thought to himself 'fuck this' His eyes shifted to the pale face of his daughter in the back seat. "Close your eyes sweetheart."

"What?"

"Close your eyes." Alan dropped the Cadillac STS into reverse and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. It was a leased car. Damn shame. He had gap insurance though. He turned and put his arm up on the passenger seat. "Emma, hush honey, daddy needs to concentrate."

Emma clamped her mouth shut and leaned forward with her head between her knees trying not to vomit in the car at the thumps and bumps. She could hear the screaming through the excellent soundproofing of the car. Some loud bangs as well. Plus Dad was driving like a crazy person. Backwards!

Sophia Hess watched the ABB gangers get run down like dogs and blinked. That was not something you saw every day. This town just got rougher all the time. It was like people were fed up, pushed too far. Gangs, bullies, racist, liberals, radical feminist and LGBTQ, those anarchist fucks, getting in people's faces. You never knew when somebody would just fucking explode. Then they were on some cell phone, or news, video so surprised when little Johnny Whitebread snapped after years of abuse and shot up the school, or they got a baseball bat to the head. Or a punch in their black ski mask. She chuckled "Or now, some old white dude drives his Cadillac over you like the fucking bug you are. I wonder where this will go from here. He probably won't even get arrested. None of those fucks are getting up. Why the fuck did they all charge into the cars path? Stupid." Sophia shrugged. The takeaway was 'leave motherfuckers alone' people were idiots though.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Don't read this unless you have read Taylor Hebert Pizzeria Tycoon.

An Omake.

Welcome to the Real World Emma

"Bitch, line forms to the fucking rear." The hod carrier reached out a hand. A hand hardened by two years of being wrapped around the handle of a hod loaded with bricks as he climbed ladders or scaffolding as fast as he could to keep up with a master bricklayer and three journeymen. The arm and shoulder used carrying a hundred and fifty pounds of brick flexed as the hand wrapped in the flaming red hair and snatched Emma off her feet and flung her toward the back of the line. Freddy didn't have time for this shit. He, being low man on the pole, was sent for lunch. He wasn't about to have this little cunt fuck up his chances of getting out from under that fucking hod and making journeyman.

Emma screamed and tumbled across the floor to the back of the line. Sophia came off the door and started forward.

Another hand, this one curled into a permanent hook from being the junior welder and carrying hundred foot coils of O gauge cable and seventy pound cans of rod up scaffolding and around steel skeletons. It caught her by the upper arm and closed like a vise "You fucking kids. We tolerate your shit, but we got to get back to work. Don't start trouble and we won't stomp your stupid ass into a nasty mudhole." The hand pulled as inexorably as a track hoe with a demolition claw on a seventy foot boom and Sophia found herself outside. Emma joined her shortly.

Madison stayed where she was in line with her mouth firmly shut. Taylor looked around and Cassy came out of the bathroom. She walked up to Taylor as the line settled back down. She looked around "What did I miss?" Just then two muffled thumps sounded. Cassy looked around the people in line and out the window at the crazy lady in the gas mask, with the M79, who was reloading.

Taylor gathered her self and looked at the next customer "No idea, Welcome to Slice of Life, how can I help you?"

Cassy sighed, so it was going to be another one of those deals. Taylor would break down later. She winced as she heard the muted meat saw noise of Hookwolf going, well, full Hookwolf.


	9. Chapter 9

Only Idiots replace Killing with Murder

Or

Overly Emotional Liberals

"The weakness and ill education of the liberal mind. Plus, a lack of ability to see an action through to its conclusion including even the larger consequences."

Kaiser blinked "What?" Liberal? No one had ever called him that before.

Skitter nodded and shrugged "That right there. Its not necessarily murder if I kill you. Its me killing you. In this case in self defense and the defense of others. There are distinct differences. Some with legal ramifications. Not all killing is murder but all murder involves killing."

Kaiser blinked and brought a blade into being from the wall next to Skitter. He screamed as the bugs who had crawled into his armor, through the joints and eye holes, bit, stung and excreted whatever venom, poisons, and toxins they were naturally equipped with. He was bitten stung or smeared on every square centimeter of his skin. His thrashing didn't last long.

Taylor looked at the twins who were covered in a layer of bugs leaving only their eyes visible "Who's next?" She smiled under her mask. The ability to read, even dusty old law books, was a marvelous thing. The ability to comprehend what you were reading was even better. Combined with the right to forego a jury trial and eliminate the emotions of twelve idiots, well that was priceless.

That people were both willing and able to put bounties on criminals, well that was just a career waiting to happen. At least for a master who could work remotely. Taylor finished her burger and onion rings while her bug clone waited for the Police and PRT with the Twins and Alabaster. She needed to get back to the library and get back to work on her home schooling. She could work on one of the Merchant, and one of the ABB capes some more as well, or Skitter could. There were some nice shops in China town and there was Dad's office at the Dock Workers Union after all.


	10. Chapter 10

Only Idiots

2

Relativity

So ants are strong right? Yes, yes they are, for their size. So maybe a half dozen of them, working with perfect coordination can carry a US bill. Now mine are bullet ants, some of the biggest in the world, or fire ants, kind of medium sized. I keep them because they have rather potent venom. Ants are fairly easy on the relative scale of keeping too and a big fly can carry one. Flies are pretty easy as well. Basically your average dumpster will keep me in business for a while.

Spiders? Not so much, bunch of bitches. Territorial, mostly kill their mates, and eat them, once they got what they want. Kill their babies too. You know, American high school girls. Taylor chuckled to herself.

Back to ants. So since I had colonies everywhere I had enough ants to scour the town, and they did. Cockroaches I didn't breed but really I didn't have to. The things were everywhere. Well they used to be. I had to slow down eating them and go to bed bugs, dust mites, fleas, all kind and manner of bugs to keep my spiders and ant colonies fed, otherwise it turned back into a free for all. Well bugs and sugar water.

So all of these bugs and lots of idiots messing with bills. Currency in bills. I couldn't really do coins, which meant fives, tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds. Fortunately the criminals didn't like coins either. At least the ones I found. So ants for reconnaissance. Spiders for guards. Flies for transport and I could make a couple hundred bucks a night. Ten bucks or so every couple of days for a burner at Wally World was my only real expense.

Why a burner? Well PHO had led me to the Number Man. A cape banker. Call him, give a location, and once a month he picked up a bag of cash.

Once a month I found a new café, or a branch library, maybe some other public space, and cleaned out the next area of ready sources of cash. About six grand a month so far. Oh plus hundreds of tips to crime stoppers, at about a grand apiece but those paid off slow. Had to get a successful prosecution you know. Anyway it trickled in, a grand here and a grand there, brought me up to about ten K a month.

Not bad for a fifteen year old home schooling. A hundred twenty K a year. When I cleaned Brockton Bay out I could go for a larger market. In twenty or thirty years. I dint really seem to be over fishing this town. Lots of idiots. New ones every day.

That was the workaday stuff. The Japanese hornets I saved for the bounty hunting. Kaiser, the twins, Tits and Ass, Yeah whatever, Fenja and Menja. Hookwolf, Storm Tiger and Cricket. Oni Lee sleeping in his apartment. Bakuda in her workshop after that kill order came out on her. Million bucks! Four hornets. Kaiser, Hookwolf, and Oni weren't pikers either Seven to eleven million bucks each, but Bakuda had only been operating a few months. Those others had years of murder behind them. Maybe I should have let Bakuda grow up to be a real villain? Nah, bitch was crazy. They were still cleaning out that lab and it had been a week.

What does a girl spend her money on? Why having Number Man set up a shell company and three REIT's of course, getting the guys in the union to fix the house up. Buying up property in the docks, train yard, boat graveyard, anywhere run down and low rent, and flipping it. After the DWU cleared it, I sold the stuff on as salvage or scrap and the Union either reconditioned it or built new. Or keeping it and letting the Union be the property managers. Oh wait that was last quarter. This Quarter the REITs had moved on to lower middle class neighborhoods and small business premises.

To tell the truth I wasn't really sure. Damn things had taken on a bit of a life of their own. Employees of their own too. They were good folks though. At least the widows in their houses let me tell they were. And if they weren't, well, the widows would take care of that too.

Taylor Hebert, Slum lord by day, super hero? Villain? Protector of the people? I mean I do kill drug dealers and pimps too, tip the cops to homeless, overdoses, and runaways, by night.

Hmm maybe I should turn one of those apartment buildings I now owned into a shelter for runaways. Maybe dad knew some people who could work there. Or aunt Lacey. She would know. Crap, this was going to turn into another money pit, maybe a tax dodge though. I would need lawyers and councilors and permits. Crap. Have to hit another of Skidmark's drug houses. Maybe catch Squealer. She had a big bounty. Now where was she? I could do live bounties. It was harder and took longer because I had to catch them asleep, or the cops and Protectorate had to get there quick, and have Panacea on call but it could be done.

Danny looked at Taylor sitting at the desk she used in his office. He winced. She was lost to the world again. Fucking Winslow. Those little turds too. Time to call the lawyer and see if there was any way to squeeze them more. Or any new ones to squeeze. "You OK Taylor?"

"Mmm, what? Oh yeah, just thinking Dad."

"What about Taylor?"

"Runaways. There should be help for them. I saw one of those apartment buildings the guys are working on."

Danny smiled "Always thinking of others. Your mother would be very proud." Danny thought about it for a moment "You know that would bring in work too. Maybe I could find a donor? I mean now that those real estate trust are paying to get the ferry back up and running to make their housing more attractive. Well them, the city, state, county and fed. Amazing how when big money wants something it suddenly becomes important to the city."

Taylor laughed "Amazing? Really? Pull the other one Dad. Those REITs are paying. The government is just greasing the permits. That's what I heard anyway." Danny grumbled and kept writing on the pad in front of him. How many people a shelter could employ was amazing. A full program would probably double that, maybe triple it. Taylor smiled and looked out the window.


	11. Chapter 11

Superior to Who?

"That Epi pen you carry, well each of them cost somebody a couple hundred bucks. Sure you stole them but there you are. Shit aint free kid.

"It ain't free to fuck with people either. I'm grown and I spell it m a n. I guess you can say I identify as a conservative male who is willing to defend myself and my rights.

"Parahumans think they are somehow more than human. Don't know, maybe they are but most of them still need to breath and most of them aren't bullet proof. "The crusty, smelly, person Skitter had found with her bugs shrugged. She blinked.

He chuckled "I saw a thing on CNN back when it was worth watching, in the eighties. Some guy in Texas. The cops were dragging some scumbag to jail through an airport. This other dude stepped away from a payphone comes out with a fucking enormous revolver and blows the scumbags head off. Live, on camera. Turns out the scumbag was child molester and had raped his kid.

"Back in the eighties in Germany, a kid in the 11th ACR in Germany cut his wife's lovers head off in a phone booth in front of their mess hall, and took it to his wife while she was in the hospital pregnant with her lover's kid.

"Formative experiences, for me anyway. Jail is three hots and a cot. Plus it's out of the weather. Decent medical care for free. Or, well, more than out here on the street." He shrugged "Parahumans kill people. Lots of people. I kill them back. Get money for it too."

"And if they kill you?" Taylor was curious.

She got a chuckle back "My wife, well she started identifying as liberal. My kids, they are smarter than me. They know more than me, just ask them they'll tell you. They are grown, got their own kids. My health, not so good. The drugs I have to take, well they ruined most of the fun things. I am going out some way, might as well do it serving the country. It's what I did my whole working life anyway. First in the Army then another career working for the Army as a civilian. Forty odd years all together.

"Besides I'm a normal, they probably won't maim me. They'll just kill me, then, well, we will see if the preachers are right or rather ole Vito is. Vito was a Vietnam vet 'you live, you die, that's it!' was his take. Dude had been in a couple nuke test. Standing in trenches as they set of nukes near him and his troops."

Skitter watched as the man lifted the rifle to his shoulder, and as the jeep came flying down the alley between the garages in the storage lot, took a shot. Bakuda back flipped out of the vehicle and landed in a heap in the alley. Her mask and head a ruin. Several more shots rang out then the man was up and loping across roofs. He took another position and opened fire again. Then he did it one more time.

Taylor asked "You didn't shoot all of them?"

The man shrugged "The ones with the guns are dangerous to me. The others got clubs and shit. Never bring a club to a gunfight kid." He spun and let himself down the front of the flat roof building then dropped "Oof. I'm getting to old for this shit."

Taylor watched him for a minute. He went to each body and rolled them over gently then searched them cautiously, opening up their clothes with a kind of extendable claw thing. He answered her unasked question as he emptied wallets and took ID's "They won't need money in the morgue. I need a hotel room and some food while I wait and see if they had bounties. People booby trap bodies though. Not US forces, but most others. We just kind of use them for bait. Sort of. Especially in countries where Islam is the major religion. Oh not intentionally, but that is how the part of the ROE that said 'if they pick up a weapon they are combatants' worked out. Weapon attached to Haaji, they take it off to carry off the body, they sling it, we shoot them." He grinned. Taylor scowled and he laughed. "Life sucks and then you die kid. Take your fun where you can find it."

Taylor looked between the guy and her friends? Compatriots? Targets? He chuckled and waved her off. "Be careful out there kid. People like me run around."

Taylor turned away and caught up with the others. Her erstwhile companion kept searching bodies. "Well what have we here? He lifted the masks. Ah, you two. Well, I know there is money on you boys. You idiots made the streetwalkers unionize. Hmmm where is your UAV?" He kept going through pockets in the coveralls the two were wearing. Remote controls and electronic wallets piled up. "Nice. I might even get a base out of this. Oh a tablet. That folds? How the hell did you mange that? OK so it should be right there then. At least from this view." The snitch looked down on a face with dark colored forehead, cheekbones, and nose and lighter colored eyes and hollows of the cheeks. It looked wildly inhuman in the low light. The rest of the figure was barely distinguishable, a humanoid kind of swamp thing or mobile weed patch.


	12. Chapter 12

"I was in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, hunting elk. Long range, heavy game. Way up in the black timber, against the treeline. Didn't know for four days. A ranger came and found us. He, poor bastard. He had to tell us. There were four of us see. Gas millionaires. Fracking wasn't as bad as not having their blow dryers and fancy cars, Hollywood shut right up about coal and gas after Leviathan. When gas hit twelve dollars a gallon. Then people started making gasoline out of gas and using coal in interesting ways. Course that got the government looking and, well, you know what happened to the oil company executives. After the mobs killed forty or fifty of them, those prices magically came right back down, and as it turns out America is a net exporter of oil. Between shale gas, Alaska, the Bakken and oil shale." The man paused.

"Sorry, got sidetracked. I do that. Well, over the years you have made me a bounty killer billionaire. Yall killed Jim, James Edmunds. Me and the boys though. Well, you killed our wives and the boys kids. So we have spent our gas millions making you and all you touch an affliction.

"Thanks, by the way. Your original bounties on you 'Nine' were hundreds of millions. Now every time you recruit a new one they are automatically worth a million. Still have to pay the taxes but we started a family bank.

"You recruit the absolute worst of the worst. Amazing really. Lots of them already have bounties. Is that how you do it? Do you look at the bounty list?

"Now I know you are going to slip away again, thought we should send you another tally video though. Turn your head or this off if you are squeamish at all Jack. Some people have written the bounties so we get more money for some really heinous shit we do to your 'Nine'. Oh we added a part at the end though, tells what we get paid for each act we do to you before you die. Don't know about that make you squeal like a pig part. Fifty million is a lot of money, me and the boys aren't into sexual violence though, diametrically opposed to it really. Might have to hire in some help, one of them boys that has been in prison maybe. Oh well, figure it out when we catch your slippery a- uh self.

"One last thing Jack, would you be willing to recruit some people specifically? We put together a list of names with some big bounties. Lot of cartel capes, big money Jack. Plus they might even survive us." The man on the video grinned. It was an engaging expression. His whole face, including his steel gray eyes lit up.

Jack Slash watched the video. It was running nearly on a loop on all the networks, the torture blurred out and the screaming muted, still it didn't take a genius. He rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before chuckling "The Jones boys have a higher body count than the Nine."

The waitress snorted "More money too. They collect the bounties on everyone in range when they get started hunting. Handsome, at least the patriarch, Keith. Happy kinda fella. Jovial they call it. The boys are a bit intense. Still, good looking boys though. I heard from a girlfriend that Keith will stop and talk to people. More than talk she said too. She was driving a brand new truck and is a waitress too. Kinda hoping they stop in here. Well since you are here, and I called their toll-free number Jack. That blue plate special is on the house."

Jack felt the knife in his pocket and sighed. He turned and saw the floor waitress with the gun pointed at his head. He turned back to the counter waitress "A piece of pie Sherrel?"

Sherrel nodded "You just put them knives on the counter. You probably got a few hours. The Jones boys are still tied up with the PRT. If history is a guide. You know how they like to whine and threaten, then the heroes have to get in their chest beating and whining."

Mary added from behind him "Nice and easy. Turn your pockets out. You stay calm and do like you are told and we won't collect your bounty. It is going to take a while for the Jones to get here. You should look over the list like Keith said. You can slip right down to the Nogales crossing before dawn. We'll stay open to talk to the Jones boys. We got a motel we can clean a couple rooms up in. Hasn't had any trade in a while but they need their rest. They spent what, eight days killing your latest crew? I know they don't sleep indoors while they are hunting. They won't turn down a shower, good food, and a bed."

Jack finished pulling an amazing array of knives from his person and placing them on the counter "That is some amazing chicken fried steak. Or some company?"

Mary chuckled "There are a few of us girls around."

Sherrel gave him a look as she finished putting the knives into a M2A1 ammo can with a hasp and lock "Just you never mind Jack Slash. Mind your business and eat your pie. I'll give you the key to this when you leave. I'm adding ten dollars to your check for the can and lock. That series two hundred should hold until you get out of town, by then you should be running fast. No capes here about. Some ranchers on the ragged edge of foreclosure though. They might make a try. Your country roads trick won't help you when they get hunting. Best bet? Eat up and head south."

Jack smiled "Yes ma'am."

Mary shuddered looking at the TV "When did you pick up Windigo? How even, he was crazy as a bed bug. I can believe somebody wanted his skin. Hard to believe the boys got it off in one piece with a golf ball and a winch. I knew it worked on deer, but humans skin isn't that tough is it?"

Jack sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Hunters, that's where they learned that trick."


	13. Chapter 13

Correcting Misconceptions

"So the population of this urban area is three hundred and fifty thousand right? So using the most recent census data that makes forty two thousand seven hundred black folks, sixteen thousand four hundred and fifty Asian folks, hundreds of Native Americans, a few Pacific islanders and two hundred twenty two thousand nine hundred and fifty white folks. Since it's an urban area, and those tend to concentrate black folks, those numbers might be a little skewed but they will be close. Not a justification for Nazism, or Asian racism, but the numbers don't lie. Conversely there is no sense making it a minority rule country and ceding all rights to twelve or four percent of the population."

Taylor looked at the man with the rifle she had discovered laying on a roof. Discovered by nearly stepping on him in the pile of stuff. In the Docks, watching a building in China, erh, Asia town. Who had just started talking to her when she realized what and where he was. "Hispanics or Latinos!"

The man chuckled "Your liberally educated teachers, and the liberal media, leading you astray, again. Being Hispanic or Latino doesn't change your race, it identifies your ethnic origin. Spain is and was a Caucasian majority country. Three hundred years ago they were a monarchy with expansionist ambitions, subjugated as many peoples, and as much geography, as they possibly could. Like everyone else was doing at the time. There are Asians, Blacks, and Whites who identify culturally as Hispanic or Latino. That's like you saying you are Germanic because you speak English, a Germanic language. Would French and Italian people be Romantics or are they Latino too? Spanish, Italian, French, all Latin root romance languages after all.

"Still none of that is an excuse for Nazi's, the Yakuza, or Lungs version of it, any kind of Black power organization, MS 13, the other Latino gangs, none of that crap. I don't mind as the differences, people being idiots about it, generates some of the bounties which I make my living off of. Still, the Constitution says everyone is equal. Oh, slightly over fifty percent are female so no excuse for institutionalized misogyny, Lustrum, or other radical feminist either, that made me some money a few years ago. Lustrum was in the Birdcage but her supporters weren't dead and some of them got carried away keeping the flame alive, or whatever.

"Personally I blame the infotainment industry. They went wildly liberal years ago to generate income from the people who felt they were disenfranchised. Of course they were actors and actresses, or people trying to sell an image to make money. Not the most reliable people, or the best educated on the whole. They have only gotten worse, and self-righteous about it now. They infected the education system, who trying to be open minded, and make money of course, grew more liberals, who then became teachers and professors, along with lawyers and judges. Now we have a lack of critical thought. Anything other than the homogenized liberal agenda is suppressed or actively destroyed. Let's not even talk about the inability to accept the reality of the situation or let anything go.

"Of course the government being retarded and clumsy, in the way of government everywhere, didn't help. The larger it is the less it helps as it tries to satisfy all people everywhere, so satisfies none. An argument in support of the non-racist position of the Confederacy. Well the non-racist and the average guy in the line charging cannons and muskets, you don't really believe they were all fighting for the richest one percent's lawn mowers, agricultural machinery, and household appliances do you? If they were, the first time a cannon firing grape shot took out three quarters of every guy they knew and grew up with, I guarantee you they got over it. Lincoln wrote some really interesting things about slavery, things that don't go with the revisionist history version of his image, right up until he needed money and bodies for the war effort.

"Another example is guns, without a human the gun is an inanimate object. It just lays there. But the liberal dogma is mass shootings are the guns fault. Mainly because they campaigned against mental hospitals for years. Got all the state ones shutdown. Can't admit that error in judgement, so there you are. Baby thrown out with the bath water, then the crazy baby grows up, kills his mom, takes her guns, and shoots up a school. But guns are the problem. Never mind crazy baby was not lawfully in possession of guns so to eliminate the problem you would have to eliminate guns in America, cant have the general population catching on to that being our agenda as confiscating privately held weapons is the first thing oppressive states, of either bent, do.

"So anyway, then capes happen and we end up Balkanized and I get to make mucho dinero. While being what people used to call a Blue Dog Democrat, Socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Nowadays they would call it a Regan Republican maybe. Anyway I'm not one of those Democrats exploiting minorities for their votes to get into government, hang on for fifty years doing jack shit, aside from getting my friends government contracts and taking kickbacks or 'gifts, donations and speaking fee's' from rich corporate interest. Then get one of my family members elected to my seat or one of my elitist buddy's seats."

She blinked. Her first night out as a cape and she got a philosophical diatribe, or stream of consciousness, from a guy who looked like a pile of dead brush, on a rooftop. Why couldn't she have just found a mugger or something? "You seem pretty well read for a conservative guy laying on a roof, in the middle of a depressed area, in the middle of the night."

He chuckled "I did say I blame the infotainment industry right? I don't watch television. I'm not a millennial, and I don't smoke dope, plus I have great recall and reading comprehension. I can show you the test results. You got to have something to do in a hide. On a stakeout, for you corrupted by television people.

"Think about something, all the advances we made as a species in the years prior to the end of world war two, then the slowing pace of advances we have made since then. I mean, we went from slings and arrows to atomic weapons, including rockets, antibiotics, computers, all kind and manner of advances, to now iterative improvements on the things that already existed. Aside from that flying golden hood ornament Scion, who has really only influenced the last twenty eight years, and parahumans which really only influenced the last twenty five, for good or ill. What is really the difference?" Taylor shrugged. He chuckled "Television. The total societal perfusion of the infotainment industry in the body human. Our parents, at least mine, were right as it turns out. Television will rot your brain."

"How about the arts? I'm not even going to talk about the crap they pawn off as art, rolling around naked, covered in paint on a canvas, jacking off on a canvass, pictures of crap, two red dots on a huge canvass, that isn't art that's people seeing how stupid other people are and running a con. Opera? Subjective but of the top fifty one was written in the age of mass market television, and radio had all but shut that down. Music? Please Saying baby ninety three times over a driving base beat isn't music. There have been studies. Music is degeneration. Most pop music is written by two guys.

Taylor blinked again "That can't be right. The transistor, which led to semiconductors!"

She got a turned head and a beaming smile, in which she could see the whites of his eyes and his teeth as the rest was covered in camouflage makeup, it was makeup right? Stay on topic brain! He chuckled again "Shockley, educated before television and a team of others all educated pre television. Who knew about Braun, Bose, and Pickard's work on cat's whisker detectors and crystal radios in the nineteenth century. All three of those last ones were educated before radio even. A bunch of other guys working on crystals too.

"Shockley proves my theory that if there is something fucked up in the world, an Englishman is at the bottom of it by the way, that's another whole conversation about the triangle trade and England getting rich on the backs of slaves, and trading in human misery for profit, and the French trying to keep up or imitate them though. Since we touched on that why does America get the blame for slavery? Most transported Africans, who were sold into slavery by other Africans or Arabs, transported in English and Dutch hulls, to the Caribbean and South America. Shouldn't sat Brazil get the lions share of the blame for slavery in the western world?

"Also Shockley did prompt an interesting bit of thought from Yale University on censorship and higher education, which the liberals have completely ignored. Still a racist bastard. Maybe the product of his times. Now however, you doubt, good. Soon you will be a skeptic. If you learn how to study history I will have to train you how to shoot, you will be my protégé bug like person, I am not your father, hiss huff, or some other Arthurian legend type crap. Everything is derivative after all. At least if the record is large enough." The asshat grinned at her.

Taylor huffed "What are you doing up here impersonating a pile of trash?" A horrible thought occurred to her "Wait, are you Mush?"

The chuckle turned into a laugh "Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants. Who knows, maybe the trash pile as armor guy could develop a good argument. Could he debate it though? Nope. Jim Jones, not of the Guyana Jones's. Bounty hunter. New in town. This place is a freaking gold mine and no other hunters were working it."

Taylor listened to the drawl, the southern accent somehow relaxing her. "From where? Georgia?" She was thinking 'Gone with the Wind' for some reason.

"Tennessee by way of the US Army and twenty years overseas. Then, well, Endbringers and they brought us all back and drew down the military to fund the PRT. I retired. Before they fucked with the pension. Knocked around a while, bad shit happened, killed the parahuman that killed someone I loved, and got paid a million bucks. Didn't kill him for that but hey, what the hell. Nothing else to do, too old to start dating again, to crotchety as well, poof instant career.

"Plus, the villains heard of me. Bit unfair them wearing mask and me walking around or appearing on the news. Couple made tries, I collected more money. It kind of snowballed." He gave a shrug.

Taylor looked where he was facing "So you are hunting the ABB?"

"Meh, couple of them, well twenty seven, I take private bounties too. Eight of the Nazi's, haven't looked at their unpowered. Your friend Mush and Skidmark. Live bounty on Squealer but I think that one is from a pervert so it will take some more background checking on him. Hellhound, something funny about that one. My folks are looking into it. Need a good lawyer if you are going to hunt. Regent if I can figure out whether or not he really is Hijack. All of Faultlines crew, but that is private money. She hunts to, not here though, so professional courtesy until she gets a government bounty, a legit one. Those fucks in the government have axes to grind too. You have to watch the government all the time. Fuckers will get you killed. Like I said, Brockton Bay is a gold mine, literally. Four pounds of gold for Squealer. Like I said something hokey there. Probably the Yangban. They pay in gold for live ones. No one wants their crap currency and they can't let their dollars and pounds go that easy. Hard currency reserves you know?" Taylor nodded, shook her head then nodded again. Jim laughed.

"So pull up some roof and sit. Target location is seven hundred meters that way and up wind, this building is abandoned and has good views and clean sightlines. I will be here until my target shows up."

Taylor folded into a cross legged seat working her swarm in the area. "So, how are you going to deal with Lung? He regenerates."

"Oh nice, you are thinking. Hero then or you would have ask about dealing with Alexandria, or one of the local heroes. Same basic answer though. Nothing creates energy ex-nihilo, they have to intake something and they usually output some waste product, a fuel and an oxidizer at least on the intake side. Exceptions of course, the hood ornament and the Endbringers. So, for a powerful cape find what they need and cut it off. Or poison it. Or stop them from exhausting the waste product.

"Find them, figure out their pattern. Find a good spot and take the shot. That's how I normally work on targets that made the final list.

"Lung, since you mentioned him. One in the head and one in the heart, before he ramps up, from as far away as possible, will be the first try. Probably with a fifty caliber Browning machine gun round. A Mark 211 Mod 0 Armor piercing explosive round. I've got a M82 and a Tac Fifty. A thousand meters away should keep him from ramping and keep his enhanced senses from finding me. Both of those rifles are easily capable of that. Oni Lee at the same time if possible. Don't want him hunting me. Suicide bombers aren't nothing nice.

"So, if that doesn't work a hollow point will carry a payload. Organophosphate I'm thinking. Pure enough and those kill everything. VX or Novichok can be fabricated with some effort. A fifty caliber round should carry enough to meet the LD fifty for Lung. If his biology is to lizard for that to work, we will find a lizard poison."

"So that's it. You just roll in here and solve all the problems the PRT couldn't solve for all these years." Taylor arched a brow behind her mask.

Jim laughed "Oh hell no. Others will show up. The Teeth got run out of here by the Nazi's and Marquis. I whack Kaiser they will be back. I get to make a steady income. Until I make a mistake and they kill me. Make some money, take a vacation to somewhere warm and sunny, with brown girls in tiny bikini's. Maybe let them have some of that income in exchange for pleasant company, good food, cold beer. Maybe some dancing on a beach. One about thrity, maybe thirty five. Old enough to have some experience, not old enough to be as cynical as me. You know, before Levithan sinks all the islands and kills all those girls."

Taylor gaped at him. "You got a full face mask on. I can't see your surprised face." Taylor stuttered and hissed for a moment. He laughed. "Always the same reaction. Bounty hunter, no part of that equals hero.

"I did my service to country. I got a bunch of thanks, a pension and, well, some medical care. It was a good trade. The Army was good to me, and the wife, the kids too. I survived stuff that should have killed me, on active duty and a cancer or two. Now I got some mechanical parts they replace every five years, a bunch of prescriptions I pick up at the VA every ninety days and a lot of time on my hands.

"I lack empathy with folks under about thirty someone told me. I guess it's true. I did the same shit they are doing, except thirty years before them. Oh, except that game thing. I never did that. Didn't have it when I was a kid. Our games were outside and involved dirt clods and no eye protection. Watched a lot of porn though, vhs tape, not on some web site."

"Hey! I don't want to hear about your porn addiction!" Taylor pouted as he laughed and laughed. Quietly.


	14. Chapter 14

Time and Distance

" 'You will cause a paradox if you change anything.' Haha, it is to laugh. You already came back in time, if you haven't done it before you already caused changes. So in other words fuck that shit. Mom's pretty fucking hot but a bit of a bionic bitch, nuclear powered even, so maybe a one night stand. No I won't be falling all in love, if that actually exist. The sister? Hotter than a fresh fucked fox in a forest fire, crazy as a bed bug. So, same deal." He looked at the small recorder in his hand "First figure out when the hell I am, then start getting some shit together, and using what I know to make as much money as quick as possible.

"Playing the stock market is out, still commodities and metals, yeah that will probably go the same way given nearly the same conditions.

"Some girls I could hit up early, maybe it would keep them from becoming the way they were if I got them early. I mean past adolescence so their personalities are set, but maybe before the first blown up serious relationship.

"Where I am becomes important then."

He looked out the window of the hotel room. He had gotten the room after mugging several dealers and what had to be a pimp. The pimp had had a Kimber ultra covert. Or something like it. A cut down 1911 anyway. Government, so none of that bullshit the series eighty and above had. Good, solid, dependable. Kimber though. Fucker had more money than brains, must have been running a hell of a string. Fucking Kimber, a grand for the name. Oh well he wouldn't need the name. Double taps kind of insured that. Especially with a forty five in the fatal T.

He watched the local news as the sun came up. It was a quarter after seven and the sky was just going light. Cold as fuck too. "Fucking Newark. Where is important, and I am in fucking Newark.

"What the actual fuck?" He watched the segment on the local PRT and Protectorate. "Worm? Really? Pussy ass, angst ridden, millennial, fag ass, Worm? Canadian nightmare time because people are rude Worm? Motherfuckers are eating women after they rape them to death in UN refugee camps in Africa but we have to angst over living in the first world Worm. You got ninety nine problems but living in the real world ain't one Worm. Fuck me. Decent world building though. Retarded angst bomb characters aside.

"If this isn't a dream I am fucking somebody right in the ass over this stupid shit. Oh fuck! Endbringers! When the fuck did those turds attack New York?" His brow wrinkled in thought. "Before two thousand eight, ok. So I'm good. Hmmm Seattle, that was the next US city. Two thousand three and New York was before that. Brockton Bay next year, year after? In the future anyway. Gives me time to find the fucking place.

"Oh Flechete! What was her name? Lily! Should be a Ward in New York right now. Maybe? OK, how do we find her? She was gym rat or something right? Fuck, I guess I got to sit down and try to write down everything I remember about that fucking, fanfic, fiction, web circle jerk, paymeone begging trick, thing. Fucking Christ. Read that thing once laughing my ass off the whole time. Chick would have gone postal and shot up that shithole. Or that Veder? Vega? Greg freakazoid would have. Anywhere except Canada anyway. Time to test the ninety seven percent recall I supposedly have."

T&D

Mike looked at his wallet and smiled, having a Jersey license was damned convenient. Having been moved here by the Army in the real world was going to work out after all. Of course he had been ready to retire and it had been fifteen years, twenty maybe, fine, thirty five, in the future, in a reality far far away from this, but hey. Maybe Trump wouldn't be President because the parties would run electable candidates when he got back. As long as it wasn't that kankle having murderous, lesbian, Hilary, who cared? That little socialist dweeb Bernie would have been better than that unelectable bitch. Not like the President mattered. Especially after the democrats just fucking over Obama for his whole first term until they lost the majority in the legislature. Fuckers. Pissed it away being idiots. Fucking Pelosi. Anyway internet banking only needed the license. A scan of it. Hahaha! The shop took cash for the laptop and the hotel had wifi. Now he just needed to knock over a few more drug houses and Bob's your uncle. Not like they were hard to find. It was Newark after all. Amazing how the bad parts of town translated? Transcended perhaps, realities. Anyway, he could build up some cash while he waited on the card from the bank then put it in an ATM. This was going to work out. Now a PATH to the city and he could start working on finding Lily, Flechete, Flechette as she spelled it? This body needed some maintenance anyway. Pretty fucking nice getting moved into a body that was even better than his best ever. Even than back in the eighties when he was all twisted steel and sex appeal, well minus the goofy ass face. Hit a couple of idiots in the city while he was there.

T&D

Lily, Flechette, smiled at the guy on the next treadmill. A little older, pretty good though. A nice routine, good form. Goofy smile in an open face. Kept to himself and paid attention to his workout, not her. Not the other women in the gym either. Did his workout and left.

"Hey Lily, checking out Mike? Sigh, I thought you were interested in me!"

"Amy! What the hell?"

Amy chuckled "Never seen you check out a guy before. Didn't know you only liked the goofy looking ones. Cute but goofy. Nice body on him though."

Lily would have blushed if she wasn't flushed from a good workout "New guy, had to scope him out."

Amy let her off the hook and nodded "Yep. He seems ok though. Does his thing then leaves. Leaves us alone. Hmm. A man of mystery. Crap! Now I'm checking him out." Lily laughed. "Name is Mike Jones if you can believe it. Lives in a monthly rental hotel in Newark. I pulled his membership sheet. Working here part time to pay for the membership has its perks."

Lily gave her a look "And being a certified aerobics and yoga instructor has nothing to do with it."

"Personal trainer too, don't forget. You still can't concentrate on your workout when with a client. Part timing pays the gym bills. Models and penthouse kids pay the rent and groceries."

Lily smiled "A monthly rental? He should get an apartment."

Amy nodded "We should help him find one. He just transferred here. Army."

Lily blinked "There aren't any bases around here. Corps of Engineers or something?"

Amy shook her head "Department of Army civilian, Monmouth or Picatinny, one of them, Picatinny I think."

"An engineer?" Lily was intrigued, they had tinkers supposedly, they the Army. They were very closed mouth about it though. Picatinny was a research and development center for weapons and ammunition.

"Form doesn't go to all those lengths, just employer, you are going to have to ask him that yourself Miss Curious. Twenty three though, so still in your seven." Amy grinned.

Lily did blush this time and Amy laughed. "That's not how the seven works."

Amy smiled "Stiff pric-" Lily held up a hand and blushed harder. Amy laughed more.

Mike watched the girls and smiled. They were alone in the gym as normal. It was ten at night. Prime going out time for young people in the city. What they did this late besides go to a bar Mike had no idea but they generally went out this time of the night. He didn't see it himself. It did let him get his workout in without a crowd flexing at each other and being in the way, and then set up somewhere near a good spot for a mugging or to watch a drug dealer or house though.

In those set ups he could hook his phone to someone's wifi, people would be idiots and not secure the dang things, plus half the businesses had guest networks, and check on some people he was watching over email or on the web.

Information age, people had no idea. Before he had woken up here he had been born, raised, and schooled before the internet was a gleam in a DARPA geeks eye. Hell they still used film in cameras. Except for polaroids. Even if they did their friends didn't and posted pictures and shit all the time. If you had a picture you could find somebody, or at least generally locate them geographically. Clothes, flora and fauna, people had no idea. Of course that just helped him so they could be as stupid as they wanted, thank you very much. Yeah it was good to be alive, well-traveled, and well-read, in the age of the duck lip selfie. Life was easy and the pickings were free pretty much. Privacy was a thing of the past. Millennials and Gen Xers were fucking great.

Meanwhile he could maybe do a little commodity trading in the Asian markets. Japan was toast but Hong Kong was still up and running. Korea was going great guns, a unified Korea, unified by the threat of the Chinese. Union Imperial? What the fuck was that even? Korea allied with Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia as well. Oil was oil, and metal was metal. A little research and the patterns he was familiar with basically repeated, just on a smaller scale.

People still ran supertankers and ore carriers. Who crewed the things was the question, but they still ran. It made sense if you thought about it. A single ship, no matter how big, was low payoff for Leviathan. The Endbringers were essentially terrorist after all. Just terrorist with only WMDs. They weren't taking single school busses or even theaters full of people. Don't want to fight Endbringers? Live in a town under two hundred and fifty K population. Of Course then the insane clown posse Jack Slash ran would show up and you were a Jugalo, or dead.

Taylor and Sarah needed emails though. Now that Sarah had rounded up Brian and Rachel he could check on them through her. He had miraculously caught her days after she ran away from home.

Really, he had been in Hartford chasing down a lead and walked right into her. Little Miss green eyes, blond hair, and bad attitude, hadn't been able to resist and started rattling shit at him, so he used it to get an in and start her forming a group. Coil without the gun to the head, sort of. He just used her own power against her and it saw the merits of having a group around her. Or muscle around her. Especially with him providing the seed money. Plus she used his accounts at Ally, Schwab, and Etrade to make more money. He had mailed her a card for that Ally account along with the details on all of them. Ally hadn't ask questions. So he sent her tips as the research reminded him or pointed to things. Aside from that rogue group she was running with his funding, which made money too. Rachel with the dogs and Grue in hazardous environment repair and testing. He, Mike, wasn't a parahuman so the PRT wasn't watching his accounts. Plus he didn't remember enough to really crack the market open, and Sarah was still coming in to her power with it. So they made money but not at the levels that screamed thinker.

Of course she was ripping him off. How much money could it take to launder money? But, she made much more than she stole so it was all good.

Annette, double edged sword there, would Taylor trigger if she survived? He had maybe convinced her not to text and drive. He should probably go check that. Kinda needed TayTay in case the retard did his shit. Oh, PanPan too. Was she even a thing yet?

The rest. Meh. Tampons really. Use em and chuck em. Maybe stop Taylor from killing the idiot brick. She could be useful as a projectile against the idiot.

And Sarah. Fucking thinkers. She was working the legal system like a mule over Rachel, using some lawyer like a ventriloquist dummy. Which still had to be paid for. By the fucking hour. Yamada was expensive too. Using up a lot of the money Sarah made, doing counseling for Rachel, Brian, and herself. Still, it was way in the black on the P&L.

Mike walked by a still blushing Lily and a giggling Amy and smiled "Ladies."

Amy watched him walk away, reached over and shoved Lily gently. Lily slapped at her hands.

T&D

Mike looked at the email from Sarah and rolled his eyes. She had no idea what she was asking for. That Leet fucker didn't either but the kid was a tinker. Hmm. 'Make it a machine that can make functional armor, which can stop fifty caliber at point blank range, without the wearer being harmed, from easily obtainable raw materials and operate on one hundred and fifteen volt AC or twelve volt DC power, and use raw materials from the boat graveyard. The armor cannot weigh more than eighteen pounds when assembled and as worn. It also cannot need tinker maintenance. Pay him a million dollars if he gets it done.

'Have Uber train you all for hand to hand combat and supervise your physical training. The dogs too, and help Leet. Check out disused industrial facilities and the price of them as well.' How did Sarah keep finding these dolts? There, that should give Leet's power something impossible to chew on and keep his boyfriend busy as well.

'If they finish that, an anti Endbringer weapon able to be safely employed by normal people that didn't require tinker maintenance and didn't kill the person using it or the planet, or cause collateral damage and was not one shot. Fire and forget would be good.

'Keep working on collapsing the gangs.

'A weapon against Lung would be good.' Send.

Mike looked out the window. Oh ho! Well time to go if they are going to move a truckload of drugs. Hmm better to wait until they sell it off to the dealers. A pallet of money was more useful than a truckload of drugs and Sarah could launder it. Somehow. He could always hit them before they sold it all and turn it in documented and the governments would pay fifteen percent of the total value because of that 'hero' law. The vigilante act? Whatever. Crap it was going to be a long night.

T&D

Lily watched as Amy talked and posed. She was fuming and didn't quite get why. She was fairly sure she was gay. So was she mad at Amy or Mike? He was flirting back. Grrr. Both of them. She was mad at both of them. Fuck! Why was life like this? Lily huffed and looked out the window. It still looked hot outside. How did it look hot? The city was a heat island still, but not as bad as before Behemoth came through supposedly. More green space, of course some of it actually glowed green, but whatever. Maybe it was the people wearing as little as convention allowed? Whatever. The subway to the Protectorate was going to be miserable. Lily looked at Mike and licked her lips as her eyes flicked to Amy. Who was grinning at her, the bitch!

Amy looked at Mike "So what do you think?"

Mike rolled his eyes "I think you are trouble. She is barely legal, and I should run for the hills."

Amy smiled widely "You probably should. I have no idea what I am doing. If we manage to get this right though I think it could be fun."

Mike wiped his face "I'm not really smart enough to deal with one of you, so two is a bridge to far, probably."

Amy laughed as Lily walked up "Just let me handle it then."

Mike groaned "I should say no. Why can't I say no? Lily, Amy is a master!"

Amy laughed loudly and took the opening to explain that they both could date Mike to Lily. Mike watched, awed really, as Lily didn't object and instead started discussing the logistics of it. He was still in awe when he nodded then froze "Wait, did I just agree to go apartment hunting in the city with both of you?"

Amy laughed and Lily nodded "A three bedroom will be hard to find but the bedrooms for Amy and I can be small."

Mike blinked "Wait, what? Hey, why do I have to get the apartment?"

T&D

Mike was still confused when they went back to the second place they had looked at and did the paperwork.

T&D

Mike glared as they all sat at the table in the open plan kitchen. Amy rolled her eyes "What? You are a multi-millionaire day trading wonderkind who had his picture on the cover of Forbes. I used to work for Chase, not as a trader or banker, IT, so the cheap bastards didn't pay that much. My gig now pays slightly better, and Lily works for the Protectorate, a government job, part time.

"Although with your day trading set up I can give trading a whirl maybe?" She batted her eyes at Mike. Lily smiled and got up to pick up the dishes.

Mike grunted "With your own money. I'll set you up an account. Get you a laptop too. You can use the same screens and the analysis programs I run on the markets. Most of my money is coming from bankrolling Leet now. Well, him and the rest of the Rogue CO-OP of New England. The trading is mostly to hold a steady income for Lisa to do whatever the hell it is she is doing with the CO-OP. I got my money back out of it, plus a little, left operating capitol in it, so it's all good."

Lily looked over her shoulder from the sink "Which has influenced others to do the same thing. Not as successfully as you."

Mike grinned "First in and got a thinker. Who helps the lawyers. Plus they have a ready pool of labor up there in Brockton Bay in the DWU. And Uber's weird power lets him train them all, or provide expert opinion. Then when those others fail Lisa scoops up their parahumans and the DWU does the normal people. Reward money on the ones who are idiots."

Amy chimed in "Plus millions of tons of scrap metal, industrial facilities sitting idle, and capes out the ass."

Lily finished up and turned from dishwasher, pushing the button that started it "Who your thinker manages to find opportunities for."

Mike nodded "And the lawyers get cleared and keep us clear of NEPEA 5. Can't forget those. Brandish would be down here jamming a light sword up my ass."

Lily laughed "She would never. New Wave joined the CO-OP. Plus MIRIS would lose their minds and poop all over her for screwing up their 'flagship effort'." She pulled Mike to his feet and over to the sofa. She pushed him in and sat on him. Amy chuckled and came over, snuggling in under Mike's right arm.

Mike smiled "Yeah. Getting them on board was probably the best thing I thought of. It sure got the Protectorate and PRT up there energized."

Lily nodded "Training exercises with Boston, Brocton Bay and New York rotating between cities and then rotating joint patrols fucked the villain's heads up."

"Not just the villain's. You were pretty out of it there for a while." Amy replied seriously.

Lily nodded "And thanks for your support. That was a lot of stuff to learn and a lot of exercise."

Mike hugged her with one arm "Glad to. Plus it let us get hooks into New York and Boston. Now the CO-OP is operating on the whole east coast, down to Charleston. All the way to the Mississippi. We dominate from New York City North, except for the city itself and Boston. We'll get there on those two. It just takes time. And keeping Accord and Lisa separated."

"You have to wait for more people to retire or leave the services you mean. Since you hire every veteran. Your recruiters have offices in all the towns with bases and you run those ads. Double the money and the same benefits. Except pilots. What is up with that?"

Mike chuckled "Helicopter pilots I hire. I don't have fighters in the company. Neither does the CO-OP."

"I still can't believe it helps recruiting. I mean I know you only hire veterans and then only those with honorable discharges but still." Lily shrugged "It doesn't work for the PRT."

"Same top heavy organization the military has with thousands of pages of regulation and procedures in the PRT. We work pretty hard cutting out the bullshit and keeping our stuff, equipment included, updated. We have whole offices of people working on the policies, SOP's, and other documents. We don't write it and forget it. Those people are promoted based on reducing a five thousand page pile of lawyer and government gobbledygook to one page of sense."

"Change of subject, well maybe, you moving to the Protectorate Lily?"

"Blunt as a bus. No I'm going to the CO-OP, you know that. For all those reasons we just talked about."

Mike leaned his head back "Alexandria and Costa Brown will be upset."

"Make them happy and snatch up Mouse Protector."

"You called!" Mouse Protector posed on the coffee table. Lily and Mike flipped over the back of it and Amy threw her empty highball glass at Mouse Protector, who caught it.

"Fuck Janice!" Mike yelled looking over the back of the couch.

Mouse Protector grinned "Yay!"

T&D

Amy woke up with an elbow in her eye and slid out from under Janice, Mouse Protector. She rose and put on a T-shirt of Mikes' and a pair of boy shorts. Padding out to the kitchen/living room she looked at Lily while she rubbed her head, further mussing her bed head. Lily smiled "So that's a ten on the fresh fucked bed head-o-meter."

Amy grunted and padded over to the coffee pot with her arms out like Frankenstein's monster. After several hits from a cup so large it only needed a nipple she sighed and tried finger combing her auburn hair "You are going to cave one day."

Lily laughed "Asian Babe. My hair won't look like that."

"It's Janice's fault. She is all hot and tight. Makes me competitive or something. She is too damn flexible. Stamina like an ox too. Of course Mr. 'who needs Viagra, my dick gets hard if the wind blows, what is recovery time?' Just pounds the hell out of whoever he can get in when it gets all 'oh yeah, hold my hair back and watch this'."

Janice came in and arrowed for the coffee pot "Me? How about you, miss arched in a bow pulled by my hair?"

Lily blushed and changed the subject "So house hunting in Brockton Bay?"

Janice shrugged "It's all happening there. Plus the villains are worth serous geld. Do them while we gather intelligence on the Nine. Get that capitol back in circulation."

Mike walked out in boxers and a t shirt and passed out hugs and kisses. His skin tight flat top still damp. Lily gaped at the bite marks low on his neck "Heartbreaker, Retard the backwards ass goblin, all those S class fucks, we need the capitol, too bad we have to pay thirty six percent tax on it, but it keeps it all legal."

Lily arched a brow "And you are going to deal with Nilbog how?"

Mike shrugged and rubbed Janice's butt as she grinned and wriggled "Got Lisa working on this wigged out overachiever who isn't doing so good at Cornell. One fucking bad semester and she is a basket case. Yamada will charge us a fortune to put her back together. Tinker, exothermic reactions. I think. We are watching her already."

Amy blinked "A bomb tinker? You aren't turning her in to the people at your old work for a bounty?"

"Nah, make more money off her as a contractor filling their requirements documents. They can figure out how to cut down the maintenance requirements on the things. Maybe Uber can. Plus she can work on whacking Endbringers. That should be enough achievement for her. Mommy, or maybe Daddy, issues out the ass. Billions in bounties on those fuckers. Maybe her and Leet could make it work. Leet blanked on it. Well not blanked, but needs stuff that doesn't exist, chemicals and metals. Maybe she can make them. Plus the European S class threats. The Russians will pay a lot for someone to kill Sleeper. They probably won't mind having wherever he is turned to salt, or whatever.

"Then we could mine the salt." Lily rolled her eyes at Mike. He grinned at her. She swung a lazy slap at him. "Yes, yes, your training works."

TD

Lily caved, and caved, then became a spelunker. She fucked like a bunny in other words. Mike, Amy, and Janice, separately and all together. She also still looked at strange. Amy and Janice laughed and asked her how her oat crop was doing constantly. Life got pretty good to her, not bad for the others either.


	15. Chapter 15

Only Idiots

Or perhaps the Insane

Try the same thing over and over

2 Alternate

Taylor reviewed the law in light of the recent noises being made by the PRT and Protectorate. There was Taylor V Taintor as the foundation of course, but then there were all the laws suddenly proposed and passed after Scion. Terrified lawmakers seeing their end in parahumans had passed some pretty weird shit. That was before the corporations got in on it trying to protect themselves. The ones that had survived test in the Supreme Court had been enough to drive the liberals into frothing fury and in their mind precipitate a constitutional crisis. Unfortunately for them the south had lost the civil war. So, the federal government and its laws took precedence over the states in all cases.

The upshot was until they got at least five reversals from the courts it was still legal for people to post bounties and legal for her to take them. Even the dead or alive bounties the PRT and Protectorate attempted to discourage.

Taylor snorted. Of course, arresting and then managing to hang onto capes would chill the bounty system right out. Until they got a lot more competent though it was smooth sailing. She looked up and over to her dad at his desk from her seat with an ancient laptop at the conference table in his office. He was doing better. She lowered her eyes and kept reading as her swarm kept working the area within a mile of his office. She was having a good day too. Her range was huge today. Usually it took a fight to get this big.

Taylor looked up when she was hugged from the side and smiled at Aunt Lacy. Not really her Aunt, but Lacy and Kurt had been friends of her parents since before she was born. Lacy looked at her computer and blinked "Taking after me Tay? Engineering?"

Taylor shrugged "High school courses are boring. I asked the homeschool people and they sent me these."

Danny snorted from his desk "Pestered them endlessly, so they tried to find something she couldn't do. Then they wanted her tested for being a tinker." Kurt perked up. Danny dashed his hopes. "She isn't one. High school is just too easy it seems."

Lacey shrugged "No idiots to distract you huh?" So, Thai, Chinese? That new diner delivers."

Taylor perked up "Greek, and they have great reviews!"

As they discussed and ordered Taylor found a target. She followed him. She sighed, of course he went in a brothel in ABB territory. Hmm, defense of others was a thing.

OI

Armsmaster looked at the construct "This could be construed as excessive force."

It nodded its head "For you. I'm a bounty hunter though. Oni Lee had a dead bounty. A lot of the rest of these have live bounties. The ones that are dead wouldn't surrender."

Armsmaster ground his teeth "You will be arrested if you continue."

The construct gave a dry rustling that his software classified as laughter. "Do your job, hang onto your prisoners and I will be out of work."

"You cannot continue to escalate!"

"I don't think that word means what you think it does. Aside from that, escalation is a perfectly viable technique as long as you can succeed tactically, and it does not hinder your long term strategy if you fail. My strategy is to collect bounties. What you call escalation is the tactical aspect of that strategy. Applying overwhelming force once I have identified and fixed a target. Find them, fix them, fuck them up, was the way I was told to do it. Meanwhile I freed all these women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery. That was gratis. You are welcome."

"And when you totally destroy a parahuman gang? Someone else will just appear to replace them."

"If they have a bounty on them, well, it won't be for long." The construct took the paper from Miss Militia and dispersed.

Miss Militia looked at Armsmaster who was obviously struggling with his temper "This actually balances what happened to the Empire. This was Oni Lee and most of the non-powered lieutenants of the ABB. They appear to have been using this brothel to plan a strike into the Empire." Armsmaster grunted and turned away.

OI

Glory Girl, Victoria Dallon, the teen darling hero of the Brockton Bay cape scene and a powerful Brute looked at her mother and her aunt "So Skitter took down Oni Lee and most of the unpowered leadership. Sounds like a hero to me."

Carol Dallon, Brandish, looked at her "Amy."

Amy Dallon, Panacea, one of the premier parahuman healers in the world chuckled darkly "Brown Recluse cause tissue necrosis. I'm not healing them without some serious money changing hands."

Sarah Pelham, Lady Photon, sighed "Which will violate our neutrality."

Amy shrugged and turned her hand over. A black widow, a big one, sat calmly in her palm. "Skitter is providing my security. The DWU is providing me an administrative staff. The state pays for medical care for the indigent. Everyone else can pay the Medicare rate. Except gangers. They can pay full tilt. I'll still attend Endbringer events, the PRT and Protectorate can pay for that."

Carol looked around the table triumphantly. Vicky smiled "Way to go Ames! So, Skitter worked it out!"

Carol scowled "You knew about this Vicky?"

"Yes. Its not right Ames doesn't get paid. Especially as the laws are written to exclude healing on purpose. It isn't like she is charging what our insurance has to pay for dad even. Just the Medicare rate. 'Accepting assignment' they call it."

Amy smiled "Skitter put me in touch with the DWU labor lawyers and accountants. And Mr. Hebert. I will get them at least ten jobs he thinks. The patients have to be diagnosed, a treatment plan written and coded, then I fix them. Then it gets turned in to the state. The diagnoses take longer than me treating them, so the doctors, nurses, and administrators work a full day and I come by for a couple hours after school. There is even a clinic building in the Dockyard. Emergent stuff gets a doctor, me and a nurse after the doctor or nurse calls me."

Shielder nodded "Nondestructive testing and running repair for me still. I might make more than you though."

Sarah blinked. Krystal Pelham, Laser Dream snorted "You are going through decon onsite. Working in sewage treatment plants! Gross! I wouldn't do it even for the thirty K a day. Plus the travel, I bet they will only pay for cattle class. At least I can stay clean cutting up the boats in the graveyard."

Vicky shrugged "I pick things up and put them down." In a horrible fake Germanic accent. The conversation devolved a bit at that point.

OI

Bakuda looked around her lab "I-"

The construct snickered "Run out of bombs? It was a good effort. I mean, eighty four clones! You got no idea how many bugs are in slums though. So this will be quick. Just hold still."

Bakuda, Alice, looked around wildly "Wait! The PRT!"

Skitter rustled dryly "Aren't going to get anywhere near here for another five or six hours. Armsmaster and Kid Win are clearing a lane. Slowly."

Alice looked around "I can make bombs bugs can carry!"

Skitter froze for a moment "Non lethal?"

Alice giggled a bit madly "I thought you were all cape killer all the time?"

Skitter shrugged, rustling, "Don't have a non-lethal method, and so far only went after dead bounties because of that."

Alice nodded, ideas spinning through her mind. A manhole cover lifted and she looked at the mass of bugs that came boiling out of the sewer. "Oh hell no."

Skitter, or the clone turned to her weeping spiders with red hourglasses on their backs and she scuttled into the hole. The lid thunked in place behind her.

OI

Armmaster looked down at the corpse. He looked up at Skitter. She shrugged "Withdrawal killed him. I didn't even know that was a thing. I thought it was after school special bullshit. So anyway, three point three mil. I just need you to sign off."

"Where is Bakuda?" Armmaster growled looking at Skidmark's corpse.

Skitter held out the paper "Not part of this and you are required to certify the death of the parahuman known as Skidmark by law as soon as you have determined it is A. Skidmark and B. he is in fact deceased."

"Where is Squealer?"

Ms Militia took the paper and signed. The law was very clear. Public health really. Bounty hunters holding corpses until they got them identified was bad. It could spread all kinds of diseases.

Skitter nodded at her "Squealer isn't dead yet. I got her to medical attention. If she lives," she paused "Well her live bounties are higher with that PRT money. Nice play that, doubling the dead bounties. Might even work if you gave out access to non-lethal weapons that work on capes. Otherwise hunters can't afford to keep live capes. To dangerous, if they aren't drugged out of their minds and then in withdrawal when you take all their drugs. Apparently that doesn't work that well either. Only batting five hundred at that myself."

Miss Militia looked around at the destroyed section of the boat graveyard. The fires were being gotten under control "This won't stand."

Skitter laughed "I was standing on that water tower over there. They went at each other. Fighting over the drugs. Mush is in that shredder, you signed off on him, Skidmark is here. Whoever that steam powered guy is is out there in the bay somewhere courtesy of Squealer. Skidmark fell over and she took the last of the stash. All these are merchants who were collateral? Fighting it out? It was a little hard to tell. I got down here, got Skidmark cuffed and in the recovery position, called you guys and he died. I can send you my patrol video from tonight."

Miss Militia nodded "And Squealer?"

Skitter pointed west "She is secure. I will let you know one way or the other."

"That's unlawful imprisonment!"

Militia and Skitter looked at Armsmaster. Skitter shrugged "My prisoner. Registered Hunter." She gave Militia a nod and dispersed. Armsmaster cut a blasted, burning, wrecked, car in half. Militia sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

AN: So which of these two do yall prefer?


End file.
